Installation is hanging up

[dave]

OK,
We have several XP machines that crashed. I'm guessing it was another one of
the famous updates that did it. When will it end? Anyway, I trying to
reinstall. After booting from the cd and selectiong "install XP" it hangs up
with the message at the bottom "Searching for previous versions of Microsoft
Windows.....". Tried running the repair option and it also hangs with the
same message. Tried Recovery Console and it hangs when I select #1. to log
in. How the heck can I reinstall when it will not even let me do a fresh
install. I know I could format with a 98 disk but what could I do if I did
not have that disk? This is the third time in a year updates have crached
some of our machines.

 

[Alex T. MVP]

Goggle for and download GParted version 0.3.3 LiveCD. It is a bootable CD
that you can use to format the drive.

Are you sure it is updates that are doing this though? If the issues is
happening that much it could be spyware or other related issues. My XP
install has not crashed with any of the updates done over the past year.

 

[Gerry]

Dave

Why have you decided to do a clean install. You need to have some idea
of the problem before attempting to fix it.

Please post a copy of the Stop Error Report, which I presume appears
when you try to boot.

Disable automatic restart on system failure. This should help by
allowing time to write down the STOP code properly. Right click on
the My Computer icon on the Desktop and select Properties, Advanced,
Start-Up and Recovery, System Failure and uncheck box before
Automatically Restart.

Do not re-enable automatic restart on system failure until you have
resolved the problem. Check for variants of the Stop Error message.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[dave]

Thanks, I will search for that download. You ask about being sure it's the
updates. I'm not 100% but I worked with MS on a large scale crash we had
after and update a while back. We did discover it was one of the updates that
caused it. Luck me I was able to turn off updates on about half our systems
before it crashed the all. But, as I feared the updated was already in the
"queue" to be installed. And I think something triggered the Automatic
Updates to start up again even after we turned them off. I'm just guessing
this is what happend this time because I think they pulled the update that
caused our first crash. But this time we are having pretty much the same
problem....PC's that go into a boot loop or just boot the the splash screen
then goes blank, all on the same day.

Like I said. I don't have a problem formatting first. But, it would be nice
if the install cd would work. It just hangs because it's finding a corrupted
windows install it can't get past. I wish it could just ignor and install as
if it was a brand new fresh install.

 

[dave]

Gerry, Sorry but I cannot get the error report. The error does not appear on
the screen and it will not boot into windows so I cannot change the system
failure settings. It only boots the Splash screen then goes blank. No safe
mode, no recovery console, no Last Known good. And, without being able to
reinstall using the cd (hangs while "searching for previous versions of
window") I'm forced to format.

 

[Gerry]

Dave

An alternative is to keep pressing the F8 key during Start-Up and select
option - Disable automatic restart on system failure.

If you are using a wireless keyboard and the F8 key does not work
substitute a wired keyboard and mouse for this exercise only.


--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~