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problem installing XP

I

Inimical

Member
This will be really short for now, because I have to get to class, but I'm trying to install XP on an old 500 mhz celeron, and it's not working. The first part of the setup runs, but after it tells me to take out the CD or any floppy and I reboot, it doesn't load into the setup program. I had to use a floppy with CD drivers on it to load the initial xp setup.

I'll give more details later. Any help will be much appreciated.
 
XP has minimum requirements plus the bios has to be compatible. I would look for a bios update first. Also, how much memory do you have?
 
500mhz celeron system with 128mb or more ram will be fine fine, I ran on a PII 300 with 128mb RAM and it worked fine.

As well as amount of memory it could be a memory issue or your hard drive may have bad sectors.

What is your boot sequence configuration in your Bios?

What does it do after it's restarted then? Say OS not found or something?
 
See, it's the damndest thing, when I restart it doesn't say ANYTHING. It just hangs up when it gets to "Varifying DMI Pool Data........." and doesn't even pretend to try to read the hard drive.

For the record, there's 256 megs of ram.

My boot sequence depends on what I'm trying to do. It seems like the bios only pays attention to the first thing in the order, and if it fails I have to restart. So if it's set to 'a, cd-rom, c' and there's no disk in the floppy drive, I have to restart. So occasionally I'll have it set for floppy first, because I stupidly didn't make the XP cd bootable. I'm using the custom windows XP boot disk that I think you can find at bootdisk.com (although you might have to find a mirror site, because bootdisk.com is now charging for some of their files). It really seems like the bios is probably to blame, although it might be the hard drive.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about the computer itself. My brother kind of just brought it back from college after he got a new computer. He thought it had a virus, but it was really just a hard drive gone bad. At first there were 2 hard drives in the computer, a 4 gig and a 30 gig. The 4 gig was making the classic click-of-death noise, so I took it out.

The BIOS recognizes the 30 gig hard drive now, but it just doesn't want to try to boot from it, even when I set the boot order to C only.

Any other suggestions or perhaps a way to find out what type of motherboard and therefore what kind of BIOS update I need to find would be grately appreciated.
 
I personally would not do a bios update because the system was working fine before. You may have to do it but I'm not sure what you'd gain out of it. Any xp cd should be bootable and you shouldn't need a boot disk. Are you formatting the hard drive before installing? You may also have a bad stick of memory, run memtest86 on it.

Edit: How do you have the drives setup? What is primary master/slave and secondary master/slave?
 
The system wasn't working fine before, according to my brother. He didn't give specifics, but the computer was acting bad enough that he went out and bought a new one.

If the CD I'm using is bootable, it's doing a pretty good job of pretending it isn't. Unfortunately I've only got a burned copy and I don't have access to the original at the moment (xp pro, by the way).

I have been formatting before installation, yes.

My drive setup:

Primary:
Master: 30gb seagate hard drive
Slave: Nothing
Secondary
Master: CD burner
Slave: 40x cd-rom

Sorry I can't be more specific about the parts.


By the way, does anyone know where I can order computer parts on the cheap in Europe? Like, a European newegg or something? If nothing else works, I think I'll just order a few parts and make a much better computer.
 
I had an old P2 system with a CD-ROM drive that just refused to boot from CD. Try another drive? Or it may be that the BIOS on that MB just won't support bootable CDs (though it should if it gives you the option to have the CDROM as a boot device...)

Working with these old systems can be tough. I ended up getting a cheap P4 motherboard with a Celeron 1.2 to replace the old one, because I just couldn't get XP working properly with it. Only cost about $200 for the MB, CPU, RAM, video card, and a new CD-ROM.
 
It really help to get the mobo and version info - make and model so we can find out more about the system.

It should be written right on it if you have the time to open it up.

As for Bad sectors, doesn't XP run scandisk on the HD b4 installation looking for bad sectors?

What OS was on it b4 you formatted?
There is also this procedure which is popular on some websites.
I take NO responsibility for what happens if YOU decide to do any of it! 🙂

Verifying DMI Pool Data in Windows 95/98

The Desktop Management Interface (DMI) is a new method of managing computers in an enterprise. The main component of DMI is the Management Information Format Database, or MIFD (the DMI Pool Data). This database contains all the information about the computing system and its components. At times, some systems may experience a hang condition after partitioning, formatting and initial boot-up of a hard drive. In Windows 95 and 98, changes to the motherboards BIOS settings, changes in hard drives or to hard drive settings alters this pool data. The message, "Verifying DMI Pool Data" appears and the system hangs. This condition may continue even after the physical drive has been removed from the system.

Solution
Method One:
- Apply power to the computer.
- Access the system BIOS.
- Set "Reset configuration data" to enable (most likely to be found in PCI/PnP section of BIOS)
- Save the BIOS changes and restart PC.

Method Two:
- Apply power to the computer.
- Access the system BIOS.
- Set the drive type as None or Not Installed.
- Then Load the BIOS Defaults
- Then Load the SETUP Defaults
- Save the BIOS changes and reboot the PC to a System Boot Diskette.
- Shut down the PC after the memory count is displayed.
- Reconnect the power and interface cables to the hard drive.
- Access the System BIOS.
- Auto-Detect the hard drive. Ensure that the LBA Mode option is enabled.
- Save the BIOS changes and restart the PC with a System Diskette.
- Partition and format the hard drive via the operating system.
- Restart the system. On boot, the screen should read:
Verifying DMI Pool Data
Update Successful
- The system should continue booting normally.

Method Three:
- Apply power to the computer.
- Access the System BIOS.
- Disable both the Internal and External CPU Cache. These features are located in either the "BIOS Features" or "Advanced Settings" menu.
- Save the BIOS changes and restart the PC to a System Boot Diskette. On startup, the screen should read:
Verifying DMI Pool Data
Update Successful
- The system should continue booting normally.
- After the system successfully boots, re-start the PC and access the system BIOS.
- Enable the Internal and External CPU Cache.
- Save the BIOS changes and restart the PC to a System Boot Diskette. On startup, the screen should read:
Verifying DMI Pool Data
Update Successful
- The system should continue booting normally.


NOTE: If the above mentioned methods fail to resolve the issue, contact the system or motherboard manufacturer to either clear the CMOS or update the BIOS for your motherboard. This will entail either:

- Removing the "Clear CMOS" Jumper and resetting the system BIOS or:
- Obtaining and applying a Flash BIOS Upgrade for your motherboard.

 
My question is this. I kinda started an installation of WinXP in French, but didn't go thru with it. Now whenever I restart, I'm given 2 options -- boot up in WinXP Pro or continue the installation of the french version. What's worse, that one's the default and not the WXP Pro one! Is there any way to bypass this? Thanks.
 
Thanks for the post, alm4rr, but none of those methods worked. It doesn't even seem like it's hanging up at varifying dmi pool data, but directly after it, when it should be booting from the hard drive.

Windows 2000 was on the machine before, but on a different hard drive (the broken one).

Could you be a little more specific about where to look on the motherboard to find the make and model? I looked around once, and didn't find anything. Maybe it's hidden underneath the power supply... it's such a small case.

As for the jumper, I'm almost positive it's correct. I had to kind of steal the jumper from the old hard drive, but that shouldn't make a difference. I think at first I read the diagramm on the hard drive incorrectly, and the jumper was in the position that allegedly limited the hard drive to just 2 gigabytes or something like that, although it still showed up as 30. At this time it was also refusing to be recognized as the master. Now that it's switched -- that is, on the other side-- it's showing up as master.

If I missed any other important questions, just tell me.
 
I agree with jackshmittusa, if it had 2 drives in it, one would be master, one slave. If you took one out, you can't leave the 30 gig as master, it has to be set as single. A Western Digital tech put it to me this way when I make this mistake: A master without a slave is like a king without a kingdom. 🙂
 
I didn't leave the 30 gig as a master. It was the slave before. And I switched the jumper on the 30 gig to the 'master/single drive' setting, so it doesn't seem like there's a specific one for just single drive. Maybe I should try it on cable select? Although that seems like something that so seldom works...

I think I'm just going to end up throwing this POS out of the highest window I can find.
 
well, I had a similar problem to what you're describing. It was actually with a system I was building for my sister. (1600+, voodoo 3 2000, 512mb). Anyway, I couldn't get Xp for install for the life of me. I tried all of the jumpers, tried different IDE channels, etc. but no luck. I finally tried switching videocards. I switched to an ati rage II pro. And guess what? That solved the problem. I'm not sure how, but it did 🙂 Try taking out everything you don't need when you install. Hope this helps!

Good luck!
 
Like the previous guy said try stripping the machine right down to the basics: MOBO, graphics card, HD & CD drive. Any other junk like sound cards or network cards should be removed. If you have no luck using the basic setup, see if you can stick the drive as a slave in another computer, then put all the data from the XP CD into a folder in the root directory. Boot from a 9x floppy to get a DOS prompt and try installing from the hard drive. Might make a difference.

Alternatively you could try installing an older OS, say '98 or something and then upgrading the entire system to XP. I had to use this method when my XP installation was on the fritz.

Hope this helps!
 
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