problems installing XP

Basticle

summary of events up till now: my parents computer is fucked up so I'm building a new one out of a brand new CPU, motherboard, and power supply with their old RAM, DVD-RW, and hard drive. I got it all set up with their old hard drive set as a slave so I can save their shit and another old one set as the master. the two drives happen to be identical models as they used to be in my old computer. the one set as master has an old-ass windows 2000 installation on it and I intend to just format over it.

dillema: I boot to the XP (home edition) disk, it loads the setup and when it gets to the point where it says "Starting Windows" the computer reboots. It does this every freakin time. I have no idea what the hell is going on.

DaySleeper

Which harddrive is first in boot order in the BIOS? Try switching them and see if that helps.

Ruckus

I Agree with DS, it's probably boot order in BIOS.

If they happen to be exactly the same model, I'd say you should remove the old one until you get Windows running on the new one. Then, after Windows XP is all good, shutdown and add the second harddrive. When you boot again, Windows XP will detect the other harddrive and install drivers for it, and probably ask you to reboot again.

When you bring it up the third time, you may still need to assign Drive Letters to the partitions to access the data in them.

Basticle

I dont think anyone understands what I'm trying to say.

I hit any key to boot from CD. Windows then starts loading all the hardware configure files or whatever it is. When it gets to the point where it says "windows setup is starting" (I dont know the exact wording), right before the screen where you would select to install or format would pop up, the computer reboots. It does this every single time, and has done it for 3 different hard drives.

supabeast

Your XP CD might be too old to handle the new hardware. If you don't a disc with SP2 built in, try getting one.

Heir

supabeast wrote: »

Your XP CD might be too old to handle the new hardware. If you don't a disc with SP2 built in, try getting one.

I've never heard of that. I have a WindowsXP cd from right when it came out. No SP1 or 2 on it. Still have no problems installing it on relatively new hardware.

To the OP: I had this problem with a faulty harddrive. I could never get it to work until I got a new one.

Basticle

its giveing me the same problem on 3 different hard drives now. and i've tried 2 different DVD drives.

Basticle

since its been pretty much impossible for me to install XP I just took the existing install and booted to that installed the drivers for the new motherboards sound/video/ethernet. while I wanted to start over fresh, this does at least get my parents back up and running right where they left off. the problem is that now windows wont let me activate it since it says "this product key has been used too many times" (even though I've only used it once before, on their old computer) which I'm sure is because I basically changed all the hardware. am I pretty much boned? how do I get around this?

Corrosive Monkey

Just phone up microsoft customer support and tell them what used your old keys for, and they should give you one

Basticle

wow, I called them up and got it working. all things considered that was actually a relatively quick and painlesss process.

I never got a fix for my original problem but the computer is set up now so fuck it, thread closed.