XP OS not loading

[101RRS]

Bought a new computer at the markets - hardware only - nothing loaded.

Yesterday I successfully loaded XP professional, and then the Gigabyte motherboard drivers covering video (I will put in a 250mb video card later), audio (I only need onboard audio), and mother board drivers for things like ethernet and USB.

For some reason the audio drivers did not load properly and I had no audio (yes in the green socket). I uninstalled the motherboard drivers and attempted a re-install. Unfortunately even though they are removed the install software still sees them there and they do not reload. On reflection I should have installed a cleaner program at that stage - butn I didn't.

So as I didn't have anything actually on the computer at this stage - I decided to format the drive and do a fresh instal.

Did that this morning - XP files copied from the CD to the drive but when the computer does its first boot in the installation process - at the end of the bios stage when it trys to start Windows - it says the OS is buggered and goes no further. I have tried three times and also once with a different drive with the same result - I cannot install the OS when the night before all was OK.

The obvious - is that there is some sort of error on the XP disk and the system is not copying the files properly. If I can find my other XP disk I will try an installation with that disk.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks

Garry

[stig0000]

mate,, there is a thousand things it could be, most likely it will be the disk you are installing it on, it probably dident Bern rite an there are cerupt files on there, an if it happends that erly in the install its probly the .exe for windows to install an it wont copy all the rite files over to the hdd, have you set the hdd right in the bios, an have the cd drive as a slave drive,

[abaddonxi]

Or there's a HDD or power supply problem that's stopping the install from completing.

You could download a linux distro and see if that'd install from CD to confirm.

Simon

[Delta_Farce]

Could also be a RAM issue, but I reckon start with the HDD and go from there.

If you have a spare HDD to install to, try that and see how you go. Then, by process of elimination I'd try the RAM by diagnosing with a program called Memtest that comes on the Ubuntu Linux install CD.

If the compy passes all of those, try to install and boot Ubuntu. If that works, then your XP disc is likely to be at fault.

[101RRS]

Thanks guys - have tried installing on another HDD and have the same issue.

If I have no luck I will try the lunix test programs for the other things like the RAM etc.

Thanks

Garry

[101RRS]

Going over everyones comments and realising there would not be an issue with the XP disk - I started to think elsewhere. What prompted this was the motherboard drivers took some sort of a hit with the audio not working so I wondered if there was more to it - noting the hangup is when the sytem changes from boot to OS.

So shorted out the motherboard Bios/CMOS jumper to clear it all and reloaded the standard default settings - all OK - everything now works - audio as well.

Thanks for the comments - they led me to think about resetting the bios/cmos etc.

Cheers

Garry

[stig0000]

wow,, is that what fixed it, nice, i thort of that but i didn't think the mobo drivers touch the biso settings,

[The Mutt]

A lot of people forget that the BIOS sets the foundation that the OS builds on,

Glad you worked it out.

Glenn