Major XP Home installation issues

[Jim]

I am trying to install Windows XP home on my 120 GB
Maxtor Hard drive on a Chaintech 7KJD motherboard with an
AMD Athlon XP 2200 CPU. I have received a ridiculous
amount of errors during installation. I've received the
dreaded NTLDR is missing message, the hal.dll could not
be found message, and various blue screen stop errors. I
have reinstalled XP no less than 10 times and am now
stuck at a place where I cannot figure out what to do. It
stops installing with 32 minutes left and the green bar
right under the N in "Installing Network." I have
disconnected all peripherals, updated BIOS, changed from
an AGP video card to my old PCI one, turned off virtually
every BIOS setting I could, gone to fail-safe BIOS
settings, tried installing it with my ethernet card
plugged in and not in, and everything has yeilded the
same result. The computer is not frozen because my CD-ROm
drive is still active and the screen advertising the
benefits of Windows XP still changes, but it will not
install past this point. I would appreciate any help you
can give me.

 

[Steven]

Jim:

How are you trying to install XP?
Boot and install from CD
Boot from floppy and install from HD or CD
Boot from HD and install from HD or CD

Is the Ant-virus protection in the BIOS turned off? It should be off
because the installation needs to modify the boot sector of the HD.

Is the PNP OS option in your BIOS set to yes? Should be. This should
not affect installation but since the OS is PNP it may affect
installation of peripherals.

Since you've changed the BOIS settings, Reset it to default and ensure
that the two above mentioned BIOS setting are set as stated.

Are you using 40 pin or 80 pin IDE cable on your HD? Should be 80 pin.
You can use 40 pin for the CD-ROM but 80 pin is better.
FYI: For performance put your HD on the Primary IDE channel and your
CD-ROM on the Secondary IDE channel. Note that this does not affect
installation just performance.

Have you checked that your XP install CD is working correctly? You can
check it by coping its contents on the HD of a working computer. If it
copies without read errors then the CD is OK. Also test your CD-ROM in
another computer to see if it is working OK. Do the above copy test with
the XP CD.

If all this fails that you may have faulty hardware. AMD processors run
very hot. I have had two cases of them burning themselves out and one
case destroying the motherboard. This is with the CPU and chassis fans
going. These happened during hot spells when the temperature when up to
about 35 degrees C.


Steven.