Hi

I am trying to install XP Home on a system I have
installed a couple of times before.

I never get the "Press any key to boot from cd ..."
prompt, the system jumps straight to CD & boots.

This is fine until the system tries to reboot from hard
disk halfway through the installation process, it boots
from CD again.

I have tried :
1) another keyboard with mouse disconnected, in case this
one is streaming garbage
2) another boot cd, just in case ...
3) upgrading the bios
4) changing the boot sequence in the bios halfway through
the installation process - it goes into a "boot failure"
loop, never completes.

My gut feel is tht this has to be a bios setting, but I
can't find one which affects this.

For the record, the motherboard is an Asus A7A266-E and
the bios is Award rev 1012.

This is driving me nuts - please can anyone shed any
light on how I can get this sorted out - I have a new
200Gb disk ready to go but I can't use it !

Thanks in advance

Russ

"Russ" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:111a01c46eee$5aaa2b70$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi
>
> I am trying to install XP Home on a system I have
> installed a couple of times before.
>
> I never get the "Press any key to boot from cd ..."
> prompt, the system jumps straight to CD & boots.
>
> This is fine until the system tries to reboot from hard
> disk halfway through the installation process, it boots
> from CD again.
>
> I have tried :
> 1) another keyboard with mouse disconnected, in case this
> one is streaming garbage
> 2) another boot cd, just in case ...
> 3) upgrading the bios
> 4) changing the boot sequence in the bios halfway through
> the installation process - it goes into a "boot failure"
> loop, never completes.
>
> My gut feel is tht this has to be a bios setting, but I
> can't find one which affects this.
>
> For the record, the motherboard is an Asus A7A266-E and
> the bios is Award rev 1012.
>
> This is driving me nuts - please can anyone shed any
> light on how I can get this sorted out - I have a new
> 200Gb disk ready to go but I can't use it !
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Russ
>

There are at least two types of boot CDs:

a) Those that boot from the CD, no matter what.

b) Those that start the CD boot process, then
prompt the user to press any key within 10 s
in order to boot from the CD. If no key is pressed
then the machine boots from the hard disk.

The code for b) is on the CD itself. It has nothing
to do with the BIOS. Perhaps your WinXP CD
is not an original but a modified copy?

"Russ" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:111a01c46eee$5aaa2b70$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi
>
> I am trying to install XP Home on a system I have
> installed a couple of times before.
>
> I never get the "Press any key to boot from cd ..."
> prompt, the system jumps straight to CD & boots.
>
> This is fine until the system tries to reboot from hard
> disk halfway through the installation process, it boots
> from CD again.
>
> I have tried :
> 1) another keyboard with mouse disconnected, in case this
> one is streaming garbage
> 2) another boot cd, just in case ...
> 3) upgrading the bios
> 4) changing the boot sequence in the bios halfway through
> the installation process - it goes into a "boot failure"
> loop, never completes.
>
> My gut feel is tht this has to be a bios setting, but I
> can't find one which affects this.
>
> For the record, the motherboard is an Asus A7A266-E and
> the bios is Award rev 1012.
>
> This is driving me nuts - please can anyone shed any
> light on how I can get this sorted out - I have a new
> 200Gb disk ready to go but I can't use it !
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> Russ
>

Russ:

Just to understand exactly what your problem is...
You indicate that during the XP install process, "This is fine until the
system tries to reboot from hard disk halfway through the installation
process, it boots from CD again."
What happens then? Does not the install process simply resume from where it
left off at the reboot? Or are you stating that the install process starts
from the beginning of the process so that you're caught in an endless loop?

Art

Sounds like the setup cannot write the boot record. Look in the BIOS
carefully (Boot menu?) and disable Boot Virus Detection. BTW, you can simply
eject CD after the text-based setup stage.

Hi All

Sincere thanks for your replies.

The CD I am using is an licensed OEM CD (it came with the
system) and I have used it before for installations
without problems, and I have also tried a genuine
Microsoft XP Pro CD too.

I tried disabling the bios virus detection to no avail.
I'll try ejecting the CD during the reboot, which would
be great if it works but it would only be a workaround,
it wouldn't fix the problem.

The reboot results in the CD booting and starting the
install process again - I'm in an endless loop.

Any more ideas ? I'm about ready for a padded cell :-(

Russ

<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:179c01c46f4d$f7926d30$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi All
>
> Sincere thanks for your replies.
>
> The CD I am using is an licensed OEM CD (it came with the
> system) and I have used it before for installations
> without problems, and I have also tried a genuine
> Microsoft XP Pro CD too.
>
> I tried disabling the bios virus detection to no avail.
> I'll try ejecting the CD during the reboot, which would
> be great if it works but it would only be a workaround,
> it wouldn't fix the problem.
>
> The reboot results in the CD booting and starting the
> install process again - I'm in an endless loop.
>
> Any more ideas ? I'm about ready for a padded cell :-(
>
> Russ

Have you considered removing the installation CD when
the machine reboots the first time?

What happens if you leave the CD reading after the reboot. Does it try
reinstalling from scratch. My system reboots then reads from the CD and
carries on installing windows. No problem. What hapens on uyouirs if you
don't interfere with the process.

Glen


"Pegasus" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:179c01c46f4d$f7926d30$(E-Mail Removed)...
> > Hi All
> >
> > Sincere thanks for your replies.
> >
> > The CD I am using is an licensed OEM CD (it came with the
> > system) and I have used it before for installations
> > without problems, and I have also tried a genuine
> > Microsoft XP Pro CD too.
> >
> > I tried disabling the bios virus detection to no avail.
> > I'll try ejecting the CD during the reboot, which would
> > be great if it works but it would only be a workaround,
> > it wouldn't fix the problem.
> >
> > The reboot results in the CD booting and starting the
> > install process again - I'm in an endless loop.
> >
> > Any more ideas ? I'm about ready for a padded cell :-(
> >
> > Russ
>
> Have you considered removing the installation CD when
> the machine reboots the first time?
>
>