problem while formatting

[raygunpk]

I have a reasonably old computer, and I decided to format since I haven't for years and there's a lot of junk. I've done the whole process before and everything was working fine, installed just like it should...up until this one point.

Before I formatted I transferred some pictures and documents to another computer on the network. After I finished I was transferring it back, and it was about halfway done. During this time I was installing my video card drivers and it prompted me to restart, and I did, forgetting about the file transfer. After this the computer couldn't boot up the hard drive anymore.

After the "press any key to boot from cd" came, it just freezes after the 5 dots. After that if I press anything the motherboard will have that beep sound.

I've tried re-installing again with both the quick and normal formatting and it's the same result, freezes at exactly the same spot.

I was using a SP3 XP CD. I'm not sure whether this is a software, hard drive, possibly motherboard problem?

I've got Hiren's boot cd and ran a bunch of programs on there. Tried to wipe MBR, do some hard drive diagnostics and formatting, recreate partition...everything seems to be okay and there hasn't been any errors, and I'm out of ideas right now.

 

[Denithor]

Can you get the harddrive manufacturer's disk tools and perform a complete low level reformat of the drive? Otherwise try hooking the drive up to another system and reformat/repartition there.

 

[kh4130]

.. or try DBAN to wipe the drive. Its a free program that does a low level format of the drive.

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: kh4130
.. or try DBAN to wipe the drive. Its a free program that does a low level format of the drive.

Technically it's called zero'ing the hdd. Anyways, this should be your first step. Additionally, you need to make sure you disconnect all unnecessary peripherals for now until you install Windows and then make sure the mobo bios is set to default settings. If you can find another XP CD it could also help.

 

[RebateMonger]

I'm not quite understanding what is happening.

You said the computer freezes after the "Press any key to boot from CD" comes up (which would be in the VERY beginning of an XP Install". But later you stated, "I've tried re-installing again with both quick and normal formatting...". That second phrase implies that you got the XP Install to proceed all the way to where it's recognized the hard drive and its partitions and you want to format the drive.

Can you provide more details on what's happening, please?

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
I'm not quite understanding what is happening.

You said the computer freezes after the "Press any key to boot from CD" comes up (which would be in the VERY beginning of an XP Install". But later you stated, "I've tried re-installing again with both quick and normal formatting...". That second phrase implies that you got the XP Install to proceed all the way to where it's recognized the hard drive and its partitions and you want to format the drive.

Can you provide more details on what's happening, please?

I surmise he is referring to the standard prompt wherein if the bios boot sequence is set to boot from the CD drive, it will display this prompt, "Press any key to boot from CD" and the system will continue to boot from the hdd if no key was pressed (if CD is found in the CD drive).