More system build problems, I really need som ideas...

[Bignate603]

If anybody remembers I had posted something about a drive not working yesterday. This is a continuation of it, though it seems the drive wasn't the problem. Windows XP won't install.
We were working on it tonight, got 80 conductor cable for the drive and then used a boot disk to run fdisk and format the c: drive. We're still having the same problems though with the system. It will hang right when windows XP says starting windows immediatly after it loads all those drivers before installation. If I had a copy of 98 or something I'd give it a shot on it but I don't have one to try, the copy I have of 98 SE is physically damaged. Anybody still have any ideas? We're putting in for an RMA right now for the motherboard because that seems to be the culprit. The only other thing i would think could cause problems would be the ram but I would think that would tend to be more of an all or nothing thing. Any ideas?


The board is an MSI KT3 Ultra ARU. Ram is mushkin PC3000

 

[Bignate603]

TTT

C'mon, somebody must have some sort of idea...

 

[LaZyZai]

Hah!
I have the same exact problem as you!!
look at the thread right under yours!

 

[Maggotry]

First, I'd boot from the XP disk and let it do the formatting. Floppy disks are sooooooo 80's.

Next, are you doing a barebones install? In other words, what's plugged into your mobo (bus and peripherals)? The answer should be vid card, cpu, memory, hd, cd drive. The more hardware windows is trying to detect and install drivers for at a single time, the more opportunity for problems. Unplug/remove sound cards, nics, modems, ups's, printers, etc. Install them 1 at a time AFTER you get the OS loaded.

 

[StinkyMeat]

bump

 

[Bignate603]

Originally posted by: Maggotry
First, I'd boot from the XP disk and let it do the formatting. Floppy disks are sooooooo 80's.

Next, are you doing a barebones install? In other words, what's plugged into your mobo (bus and peripherals)? The answer should be vid card, cpu, memory, hd, cd drive. The more hardware windows is trying to detect and install drivers for at a single time, the more opportunity for problems. Unplug/remove sound cards, nics, modems, ups's, printers, etc. Install them 1 at a time AFTER you get the OS loaded.

We would have let the CD do the formatting if it would even GET that far. The install crashes before it gets there so we had to use the floppy. The ethernet card (a D-link) is the only other thing in the system besides the bare bones stuff.

 

[OpalFrost98GT]

Load smartdrv.exe and try copying the i386 directory on the cd to the hard drive. Run the install from the hard disk using the winnt.exe command

g/l

 

[foofoo]

hi,
do you have any memory that you can swap? bad ram is usually the problem in these types of situations in my experience.
good luck.

 

[StinkyMeat]

We can indeed try some other RAM. Also, would you recommend installing another version of windows and try upgrading to XP? We've heard that works in some cases...

 

[Bignate603]

We do have another stick of ram we can use and possibly another vid card but i really don't want to just steal my brother's card with out asking, the ram is a little easier to get.