BSOD when trying to install windows xp

[Mr_M_Cox]

I have just tried to re image a dell D810 laptop with a tried and tested ghost image that works across multiple hardware types thanks to UIU (good software worth checking out) but it will not seem to work on this one machine.

it images fine using ghost and then half way through windows set up it bsod on me. i have tried booting from a windows disk inorder to do a repair but cant even get to the first menu as it bsod half way through loading up the disk.

to me this sounds like a hardware issue, maybe the HDD.

any other ideas or suggestions would be great.

[JamesC]

Indeed sounds like it could be a HDD issue. Any more specifics on the bsod error message?

[Mr_M_Cox]

Yeah sorry that would have been helpfull in my original post

It speaks of PnP driver issues and that they may be wrong - as i said sound like a dodgy HDD to me.

Just know that if i phone dell and say that they will want to run all sort of tests and stuff to test my diagnosis so i really want to be right.

[Nick_Parker]

I've had a similar problem, what I had to do with turn off SATA enhancements or something similar in the bios, something about Native mode.

I'll check the exact name as soon as I get back to work

[Neil]

Is the image XP SP2 ? I have an issue like this with a Dell machine and it would blue screen unless the install had sp2. Just a thought

[Michael]

@Mr_M_Cox - When you say Windows Setup, do you mean half way through the Sysprep Mini Setup? If so, I've never had Windows BSOD here, but when you restart the computer can you press F8 and choose to Disable Automatic Restart?

Alternatively, if you have another laptop (exact same model), try swapping the memory and hard disks. It'll be either one of these causing the BSOD.

[SYNACK]

Have you tried updating the bios on the offending machine to the latest version. I have had an iffy bios generate errors like this before.

[TronXP]

I've had a similar problem, what I had to do with turn off SATA enhancements or something similar in the bios, something about Native mode.

I'll check the exact name as soon as I get back to work

We had a very similar problem with some Lenovo laptops, you had to change the sata settings in windows, then once XP was installed, install a driver and then reboot put settings back and it all worked fine.

[Martin]

We have just had someone with a similar problem on a Latitude D830 - and it turned out to be the Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) settings.

See Wikipedia AHCI, especially the bit under "Common problems switching to AHCI under Windows"

Thus, assuming the D810 also uses SATA, in the BIOS change SATA BOOT OPERATION from AHCI to ATA and give it another try.

Cheers,

mb