Windows XP doesn't finish installation.

[mo_vigilante]

Hello all,

 

I have a HP Compaq 6715b and when I attempt to perform a clean install on this laptop through their Windows XP CD, it goes through the setup and installs the setup files on the hard drive and what normally should happen is that it restarts and continues to finish the installation.

 

However, at this point it restarts and then continues to do so in a loop so it doesn't carry on finishing the installation. There isn't any warning lights on the laptop to indicate me of a problem. I ran a HDD test through the BIOS and all passes ok.

 

Just wondered if any of you guys had any ideas on this one?

 

Thanks.

Mo

[Steve21]

Have you tried disabling "Automatic Restart on System Failure" thingy in Bios? Might be blue screening etc, and constantly rebooting due to it.

 

Steve

[timbo343]

Is it possible you can get into safe mode (if its available). It might be one of the drivers playing up

[MkII]

Disable onboard nic etc to see if bypassing those driver installs cures it?

[glennda]

Whats the Sata mode set to? i know it can be funny on those HP laptops sometimes as we used to have about 150.

[FN-GM]

Whats the Sata mode set to? i know it can be funny on those HP laptops sometimes as we used to have about 150.

 

Im also guessing this. Seen this a good few times.

[Gatt]

Sounds like SATA Mode or Mass Storage drivers...

[mo_vigilante]

Hiya guys,

 

Tried the above things to no avail. I've seen it before with HP laptops in the device configuration where the SATA mode has to be disabled, so the sysprep can run after we've imaged in the past with Ghost and WDS. However, there isn't a SATA mode in device configuration. Tried looking elsewhere in the other menus for any other possible issue but can't see anything.

 

The only things I can see in the device configuration is the 'HDD translation mode'

 

At the moment it is set to LBA-assisted. To be honest I don't know what this means but thought it might be worth changing to the other setting which is 'Bit-shift'

 

This didn't help as well. Tried restoring defaults on the BIOS to no avail. I know it will be something daft but can't see anything in the device configuration or built in device options that would be worth changing or something?

 

Any other ideas guys?

 

Thanks.

Mo

[armadillo]

I had similar issuewityh Dell Optiplex 980; I had to change the setting for the CPU in the BIOS- it was something to do with how many cores are used to load windows and if not set correctly the installation halts halfway.

[mac_shinobi]

I would check bios update read me to see what issues it resolves, as may add more support or fix the issue you are having ? If so then obviously update the bios / cmos

 

What SATA modes are there, is there any mention of AHCI mode or IDE Mode or can you take any photos so we can see what options you are getting in the bios ?

 

Also the XP Disc is this a service pack 3 disc or what exactly ?

 

Might also be worth while using nLite to intergrate the SATA / MASS Storage drivers into the xp disc and re burn a new xp disc and use the new xp disc and if its pre SP 3 then might also be worth while slip streaming it before burning it and try again ?

[mac_shinobi]

At the moment it is set to LBA-assisted. To be honest I don't know what this means but thought it might be worth changing to the other setting which is 'Bit-shift'

 

Mo

 

LBA Assisted - guessing here so could be totally off the mark but from what I can gather ( Large Block Addressing aka LBA ) was for supporting larger capacity drives without having to partition them in the days of FAT32, at least thats what I think that is. Not sure what the Bit Shift is all about though.

[cpjitservices]

as a bit o' daft i'd boot into something like BartPE and i'd run a chkdsk /r - it could be that there are some bad sectors on the drive and so the drive only gets so far before it goes kablooey or it could just be a faulty drive - then I'd do a full NTFS format using BartPE or something similar, then try installing XP again.

[mo_vigilante]

Cheers guys for all your inputs - I will try the above and hopefully have some luck.

 

Thanks again.

Mo

[mac_shinobi]

Cheers guys for all your inputs - I will try the above and hopefully have some luck.

 

Thanks again.

Mo

 

Keep us updated / posted - would be good to know how you get on.

[Michael]

Thinking about it, it can't be SATA drivers being the problem. If SATA drivers were required, Windows Setup wouldn't find the hard disk and wouldn't install any files (on the first blue screen).

 

I would try using a generic OEM disc and not HP/Compaq's disc. I would also try swapping the RAM and see if this makes any difference too.

[mac_shinobi]

Thinking about it, it can't be SATA drivers being the problem. If SATA drivers were required, Windows Setup wouldn't find the hard disk and wouldn't install any files (on the first blue screen).

 

I would try using a generic OEM disc and not HP/Compaq's disc. I would also try swapping the RAM and see if this makes any difference too.

 

True - maybe im just imagining things but am sure I had it before where in the bios it found the drive but then when trying to install any OS it did not have the correct mass storage controller / driver / sata drivers to install the OS and use the HDD as a SATA drive as per norton ghost you had to use the no FNI Switch ( force new install or someit )

 

Either way, also had this as per you mentioned using a non dell / compaq xp disc and then it worked fine.

[Michael]

True - maybe im just imagining things but am sure I had it before where in the bios it found the drive but then when trying to install any OS it did not have the correct mass storage controller

 

You're right this can and does happen however, Windows Setup in this instance hasn't requested any mass storage driver. The fact Windows Setup gets to step 2 I think the problem is possibly hardware related. Windows Setup does load a lot of information into RAM during setup.

[mo_vigilante]

Hiya guys,

 

I tried the steps you all recommented. Double checked the HDD in the BIOS and come back successful. Ran a chkdsk /r and comes back with no errors.

 

Tried a different RAM and a OEM XP disc to no avail and does the same thing. It is definitely hardware related but as I changed the RAM, and I'm quite sure the HDD is fine also.

 

What I did notice for a split second though is that when you start the machine up - all the lights at the bottom show up green and healthy as it normally should do.

 

However, at the point where it restarts when it should continue to finish the installation - the hard drive light turns amber for a split second and this is when it restarts. And continues to do so in a loop. So although I'm sure the health of the hard drive is fine, I can't be 100% sure unless someone else can shed some light on this?

 

Or it could be the SATA mode? My next step was to install a Vista on it and see if this will do the installation? If so, then I was going to update the BIOS and maybe see if there is a setting to change the SATA mode and then try XP again?

 

Would you recommend this?

 

Thanks again.

Mo

[glennda]

What I did notice for a split second though is that when you start the machine up - all the lights at the bottom show up green and healthy as it normally should do.

 

However, at the point where it restarts when it should continue to finish the installation - the hard drive light turns amber for a split second and this is when it restarts. And continues to do so in a loop. So although I'm sure the health of the hard drive is fine, I can't be 100% sure unless someone else can shed some light on this?

 

 

The Amber light is Hard disk activity (if its the hard disk light) if i'm not mistaken on these laptops - i'll double check as i actually have one of these running ubuntu at home for my work laptop.

[Michael]

I would try another OS, either Vista or 7 and see if they can complete setup.

 

You could also try a USB Optical drive (if supported) instead of the internal drive and see if this makes any difference.

[mac_shinobi]

I would try another OS, either Vista or 7 and see if they can complete setup.

 

You could also try a USB Optical drive (if supported) instead of the internal drive and see if this makes any difference.

 

It's not one of those laptops like Toshiba and the likes do which only supports windows 7 as there website only has windows 7 drivers or similar and when you try and install xp you have to hunt around ( literally dig around the webernet ) to find the correct drivers for hardware ie chipset, audio , video etc etc ??

[Michael]

It's not one of those laptops like Toshiba and the likes do which only supports windows 7 as there website only has windows 7 drivers or similar and when you try and install xp you have to hunt around ( literally dig around the webernet ) to find the correct drivers for hardware ie chipset, audio , video etc etc ??

 

This shouldn't be a problem as the laptop is a number of years old and comes with its own XP OEM disc. The other possibility is heat (crashing after the same/similar amount of time). I wonder if it's when Windows is searching/installing device drivers that's causing it to crash? As I already suggested, try another OS. Windows 7 has a huge database of revised drivers.

[mo_vigilante]

Thanks guys. I've managed to sort out the problem through installing 7 on it. I will have a go with an OEM XP disc once I can dig one out but at least I know it's not hardware related.

 

Thanks.

Mo