I have the following system and config:
Emachine T5026, 1GB+512MB RAM, Intel Pentium 43.06 GHz, 350GB HDD(1 came with the machine, the other is new), XP PRO and 2000, new 400W PSU.
The machine came with XP home and I upgraded to XP pro. About 2 months ago, I started having bootup problems, then one day I tried to bootup and the system just lock on the Windows icon and not go any further. I was was advised to change out the PS, add more memory and get a new HDD. I did all that and I continued to have the same problem.
I removed the old 160gig HDD and tried to install XP pro on the new drive. The XP pro would start to install then freeze up when it get to "windows is installing XP".
My next thought was to install 2000 then upgrade to XP pro. 2000 installed and I had and OS finally but when I went to upgrade to XP pro, it still would only install so far the freeze.
At present, 2000 is working but takes 3 to 5 minutes to get to the desktop and I have some yellow question marks in my device manager (pci controller). XP still freezes doing installation. Do I have to install XP home first and then install XP pro? Appreciate any suggestions or advice.
What type HDD's, IDE(PATA) or SATA?
Any yellow flag's in Device Manager usually indicates a driver needs to be installed for that device.
I would put the 160Gb drive back in, wipe it clean, remove the new drive, install Home on the 160, putting it back to it's original state.
Make sure it's running ok, then add the new drive by using the HDD's Manufacturers Utility program to set up the new drive as the new boot drive and if everything works out, then do your upgrade to XP Pro.
The system is SATA. Will try reformatting on the old HDD. Thanks for the advice.
Hi,
Windows XP pro should install to any new drive, if it will not you have problem somewhere. To try and work around the problem by installing another OS first, is not addressing the problem.
I would first go right through your PC and clean all components and connections, ensuring that all were connected well.
This is the third thread in a short time that XP will not load to the HD, but it can not be a virus if you were using a new HD. The other 2 could load Ubuntu, but not windows.
Something is going on but I have no idea.
I can load UBUNTU but not sure how to use it. Since I can operate
2000 and have clean out all the system, still no XP. Will get XP home and see if that will load then try putting in XP pro.
Hi,
just doing some searching and I cam up with this from another site "I disabled the Onboard LAN and USB Controllers in the BIOS and in less than 10 minutes XP was installing. After the install, I enabled the Onboard Controllers, installed the drivers from the mobo CD and it has worked great! I am heading out to get a chipset fan right now to see if my Abit board is fine and will install XP."
Anything is worth a try if it will not do any damage. This will not.
Since your HDD is a SATA and Xp does not natively support SATA, you have to install the SATA drivers at the F6 Prompt (load 3rd party drivers) at the beginning of the XP install.
You have to acquire the SATA drivers for your MOBO or SATA add-in card, put the files to a floppy and insert the floppy at the F6 prompt.
Hi Adamsappleone,
If a SATA raid driver was required, would not the problem then be an error message "Can not find any hard disk installed" The PC would show it in BIOS and on the start up flash screen but Windows would not find it. With this installation it gets to the "Installing Windows" stage, therefore, the SATA drive is recognized by Windows.
thanks for the help. I also encountered same problems regarding XP and SATA
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