Windows XP installation halts at "Setup is starting windows"

[Gustavus]

First I would like to thank all of you who have responded to my query. I have been with Anandtech from the beginning and one of the special things about the group is the way members help each other.

My problem is solved. Unfortunately, I do not know, and presumably never will know, what the problem was. I used Acronis Drive Image in the Clone drive mode to make a clone of the hard drive in the other machine which was on an ABIT IC7 G motherboard to one of the Seagate 160 GB hard drives I have been trying to install Windows to. Both the CPUs and the graphics cards were different, but the CPU's were both Intel P4's and the graphics cards were both ATI Radeons -- of different models. Naturally the new machine did not boot without complaint from the clone drive, but I did get to Windows before problems began occurring. The desltop would appear for a moment and the machine would then reboot spontaneously. The page file had apparently been lost so in safe mode I set it to new sizes. That allowed me to get into Windows where I could systematically make changes for the new machine configuration. After several hours work, I now have the Turtlebeach Santa Cruz sound card installed and working and am on net -- both the LAN and with internet access. Bottom line, I am now where I should have been two days ago after less than an hour's work. I have installed Windows in dozens of machines and can't even guess what prevented me from installing on this one. The machine has run for hours, various programs and on and off the net with no problem. I plan to set it to run Prime 95 for a day just to make sure, but don't expect any further problems.

Thanks again to all of you who replied.

 

[robisbell]

well, glad you're up and running, but soemthings still not right hardware wise on the machine. good luck.

 

[alionbe]

Hi,

I'm resurrecting this thread because I'm having a nearly identical problem... except this is happening on my machine that I've had running in good condition for five years. It started because I was getting some really nasty viruses that were not taken care of with Norton and I was dragging my feet on resolving it because it wasnt causing any major problems... that is, until I got a nice message after a restart "windows has recovered from a serious error" etc. I then immediately get BSOD stop error 0x0000008E (0x00000005 ... I troubleshooted that error for nearly a week and pretty much gave up. I dont have anything too important on the system drive so I opted to just do a clean install.

That's when I ran into this problem. It's exactly as Gustavus explained.. Setup is starting windows, then a black screen hang. My initial though was that this had something to do with a virus attack, but now I'm not entirely sure. Hard drives are good, XP cd is tested good, ran memtest -- ok, cleared the cmos and set bios to default. I didnt add any hardware or try to install anything new when this happened. I can run safemode all day.

Even if there's a way to stop the system crash/stop error business, I still want to do a clean install so that's why I really need the help.

 

[buggernuts]

hey guys , after reading this forum regarding windows going to a black screen after setup is starting after the format and everything , i signed up and everything to let you guys know how i solved it , believe me i tried everything in my laptop , reset cmos battery , tested everything , turned out it was because i had 4 gigs of ram in it (2x2gb) . take a stick of ram out , or replace your ram worked first time . hope i helped you there , phewww only took me like 5 hours to figure it out but hey...spread the news i say!

 

[Harvey]

Originally posted by: buggernuts

hey guys , after reading this forum regarding windows going to a black screen after setup is starting after the format and everything , i signed up and everything to let you guys know how i solved it , believe me i tried everything in my laptop , reset cmos battery , tested everything , turned out it was because i had 4 gigs of ram in it (2x2gb) . take a stick of ram out , or replace your ram worked first time . hope i helped you there , phewww only took me like 5 hours to figure it out but hey...spread the news i say!

Interesting, but not necessarily applicable to all machines. My Compaq V6719NR is just the opposite. It's spec'd for a max of 2 GB (2 x 1 GB), but it works very well with 2 x 2 GB. Your machine may not tolerate that much RAM, or you just have had a bad or marginal stick.

 

[Gustavus]

Surprised to see this thread come to life again, but since it has I will add this post to explain exactly what was causing my original problem, since that may help someone else who encounters the same problem. When Windows XP completes the file transfers during the first stage of the install, it expects to find a VGA driver and card -- remember Windows XP is pretty much legacy software now. If you have a more modern video card with a digital connector in your system, Windows will hang -- just as I experienced. If you temporarily install a VGAvideo card the install will complete just fine. I have ATI cards with both digital and VGA connectors. If I connected to the VGA connector the installation completes without problem. If I connect to the digital connector, the system goes black screen after saying Windows is starting. I am retired and had the time to uninstall and reinstall Windows to verify that this was the source of the problem.

At least for my machine this was definitely the source -- and the fix -- of the problem.

 

[JulianoGS]

Thanks for the F5 tip, it did the trick for me!
Brilliant!
Yes there are several options try more than one!
Thanks again!

 

[Dude111]

Welcome to anandtech!!

Im glad ya found an answer so quickly,please feel free to stick around

 

[KingFlameaLot]

I will resurrect this Thread 6 years later. I am currently trying (For the last 5 hours on and off) to Install Windows XP for testing purposes on a machine that thad win 8 run on it previously. The Computer has 4 Gigs of Ram and I3 6300 if im not mistaken and a 500GB HDD. I tried setting the Harddrive to IDE, disconnecting everything that isnt neccessary(including the optical drive), tried the F5 trick with all options once and i am still not getting anywhere. I dont get the Blackscreen. The install just stops at the "Setup is starting Windows". Are there any other things you guys may have in mind? Is my Hardware too new?

 

[daveybrat]

Yes, the hardware is far too new. A sixth generation Intel cpu and motherboard are not supported by XP any longer.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I've not tried installing XP in the last few years, no call for it really. Win7 is about as old as I go.

But still, I wonder, if you could boot it, IF, you:
1) Disable ALL UEFI and Secure Boot stuff, force CSM/Legacy boot and ROM settings, completely. (Some UEFI may not allow this?)
2) Set SATA controller to IDE. (Not sure if modern boards allow this anymore, since ICH7/Core2-era.)
3) Install a PCI (NOT PCI-E) video card, with VGA output. (*Yes, that means that your board needs to support PCI slots, and support using them for the primary display output.) Maybe a PCI-E 2.0 or lower NV card might work too, if you use the earlier drivers that support XP 32-bit.

I think that might have a fighting chance of working.

But I know that PCI-E 2.0 boards (like my P35 or P45)(or Sandy Bridge?), need XP SP3a pre-slipstreamed, to handle the PCI-E version stuff. Maybe PCI-E 3.0 gives it fits? (Some boards allow setting the ACPI version level, as well as the primary and maybe secondary PCI-E slot protocol revision / transfer speed. Maybe crank both of those down as well?

Could make an interesting YT video, if someone succeeded in installing XP on something like Skylake, which is the last platform that Intel even supports officially for Windows 7 64-bit.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I will resurrect this Thread 6 years later. I am currently trying (For the last 5 hours on and off) to Install Windows XP for testing purposes on a machine that thad win 8 run on it previously. The Computer has 4 Gigs of Ram and I3 6300 if im not mistaken and a 500GB HDD. I tried setting the Harddrive to IDE, disconnecting everything that isnt neccessary(including the optical drive), tried the F5 trick with all options once and i am still not getting anywhere. I dont get the Blackscreen. The install just stops at the "Setup is starting Windows". Are there any other things you guys may have in mind? Is my Hardware too new?

I presume the reason you want to install it, is running it as a VM will not work for your purposes?

 

[KingFlameaLot]

I've not tried installing XP in the last few years, no call for it really. Win7 is about as old as I go.

But still, I wonder, if you could boot it, IF, you:
1) Disable ALL UEFI and Secure Boot stuff, force CSM/Legacy boot and ROM settings, completely. (Some UEFI may not allow this?)
2) Set SATA controller to IDE. (Not sure if modern boards allow this anymore, since ICH7/Core2-era.)
3) Install a PCI (NOT PCI-E) video card, with VGA output. (*Yes, that means that your board needs to support PCI slots, and support using them for the primary display output.) Maybe a PCI-E 2.0 or lower NV card might work too, if you use the earlier drivers that support XP 32-bit.

I think that might have a fighting chance of working.

But I know that PCI-E 2.0 boards (like my P35 or P45)(or Sandy Bridge?), need XP SP3a pre-slipstreamed, to handle the PCI-E version stuff. Maybe PCI-E 3.0 gives it fits? (Some boards allow setting the ACPI version level, as well as the primary and maybe secondary PCI-E slot protocol revision / transfer speed. Maybe crank both of those down as well?

Could make an interesting YT video, if someone succeeded in installing XP on something like Skylake, which is the last platform that Intel even supports officially for Windows 7 64-bit.

Ill make sure to set all these and report back with my results. Cheers for the advice.

I presume the reason you want to install it, is running it as a VM will not work for your purposes?

Im not sure, we have a Software Distribution System which needs custom Jobs to be run on XP. I wanted to log a few .msi's to get the Parameters to create these new Jobs, but i will ask my peers if that could maybe work. Great Idea!

EDIT: I confused the Specs of my Computer with another im sorry! it actually runs an i3 4th Generation Processor, which at this just confuses me more..

 

[Shmee]

I believe XP hardware support was cut off after intel 3rd gen. Either way, its gonna be a tough thing to do on a modern system, unless you use VMs.