Install Failure

Topic

New Reply

Friend’s Dell desktop, running XP Home, stopped working. Tried a Repair Install, but the Windows installation was so corrupted that Setup wouldn’t see it. So I put in a new hard drive and started a full Install. Everything goes along until the point where Setup reboots the PC, and then normally the GUI part of the setup would start. Instead, the entire setup starts over again After this happened twice, I even reformatted the hard drive and tried again, but the same thing happened. Any idea what might be wrong?

Reply | Quote

Replies

Do you have the current drivers required for the PC & peripherals?

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

Do you have the current drivers required for the PC & peripherals?

Joe

If you mean things from the Dell website, not yet. My normal procedure is to do a “plain” XP install, then hit the mfr. website for missing drivers.

Reply | Quote

If you are using a generic XP install CD you may need a specific Dell driver for the PC to work correctly.

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

If you are using a generic XP install CD you may need a specific Dell driver for the PC to work correctly.

Joe

Turned out I needed to set the BIOS to Default Settings, then the XP install went smoothly. Luckily all the hardware got identified and installed correctly by the XP Setup, as XP is NOT a supported OS by Dell on this particular model.

Reply | Quote

Glad you got it figured out. Thanks for posting back.

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

The one time I saw this problem was after another tech had already tried to install Windows XP several times.
Every time, on the first automatic reboot, the entire Install would start over again.

I checked out the system and found one stick of ram with a big “S” on the chips. This is commonly known as “Superman Ram”.
It’s cheap JUNK and widely known to fail when the system loads it down. Most Memtest programs do not load the ram but only check one cell at a time.

Anyway, once I removed that bad stick of ram, Windows XP loaded properly.

So in short, one bad ram stick can cause Windows XP to fail to install, exactly as outlined in your complaint.

Maybe knowing that will help someone else.

The Doctor

Reply | Quote