Upgrading from Win2KPro to WinXP Pro --- upgrade process locks up

[wmohat]

I'm trying to upgrade 7 systems from Win2K pro to WinXP pro.... and the
installation process locks up every time. The lockup happens about 1/3 of
the way through the upgrade process .... right after the second restart
(after "Preparing Installation" completes). The system restarts to a black
screen with the Microsoft logo and flag on it.... with 5 small squares
blinking in a row to indicate activity.... but nothing else happens. After
maybe 4 seconds, disk activity stops, forever....the systems will sit for
days without any further progress. No error messages are displayed.... I
have just the black screen with the Windows logo on it, with the little
squares at the bottom blinking to indicate progress, but there is no progress.

All of the systems have Asus P4S533 motherboards, with NVIDIA video
cards, but I don't think this is hardware related; I can use the same CD-ROM
to do a "dual-boot" installation on the same PC systems, but that isn't what
we want. We need to have all of the software that is installed under Win2K
run under XP, so "upgrade" is what we absolutely must do. (It would take
WEEKS to reload all of those applications on all of those systems.)

I don't think this is application software related either. I have
tried unloading ALL device drivers and killing all startup programs.... even
booting in "Safe Mode" before attempting the WinXP upgrade. Power management
in the BIOS is shut off, (etc, etc).... the systems are STRIPPED to the bare
minimum, but nothing works.... the upgrade process freezes in the same spot
every time. But, the same system and install CD WILL load XP "dual-boot"
into a separate disk partition on the same PCs. It's just "upgrading" Win2K
that doesn't work. Ever.

What's going on here? Is there any "diagnostic mode" for the XP
Upgrade that will give me some clue as to why the system is freezing during
the upgrade process?

 

[Andrew E.]

First,with any software upgrade or installation,if the pc gets into a "idle"
or "open loop" & nothing is installing within 5-10 minutes,end the task at
hand.
"Running for days" w/o success in the same place will damage both hardware &
software...As for the problem(s),with the upgrade,its critical that youre
cdrom
with xp cd installed,be set as 1st boot priority in the BIOS,set the hd as
second.
Also,other option,boot to xp cd,upgrade at xp cd boot menu.I believe it's
possible
however havent "upgraded" to xp in long time....

 

[John John (MVP)]

Are you starting the upgrade process from the up and running Windows
2000 installation? Boot the computer with the Windows XP cd and try the
upgrade there.

John

 

[wmohat]

John:

I have tried both ways; both booting from the CD, and also starting the
CD from Windows 2K. Neither works; both lock up forever after the second
restart of the Setup process.

As I said, I can use the same CD and install WinXP as a second O/S
(dual-boot) on a separate partition of the same hard disk on the same system.
So, I don't have a defective CD-ROM, and there obviously isn't a hardware
problem here. But, I cannot "upgrade" the Windows 2K installation to WinXP.
It just won't work.

I have tried unloading every device driver in the system, and stopping
all "startup tasks", turning off power management, (etc, etc, etc).... even
booting the CD-ROM from Safe Mode (or booting the CD-ROM directly.... so
there isn't any portion of Win2K runinng while the "upgrade" attempt is being
made). Nothing makes any difference; the setup process cannot upgrade my
Win2K install to WinXP. (I have the main disk "imaged" to a backup drive,
so I can always restore the system to it's original state after an install
failure.)

Is there any kind of "diagnostic mode" that setup can run in, to give
me a better idea what's going on here? What things can cause an "XP
upgrade" process to lock up?

--Bill

 

[John John (MVP)]

From the freshly booted Windows 2000 installation run the following:

net start >c:\startlist.txt

and post the contents of the startlist.txt file here.

Log files are created during the setup, you may find useful information
in the logs
http://www.mcmcse.com/microsoft/guides/troubleshooting_setup.shtml

John

 

[wmohat]

John:

OK ... I ran the "net start" command as you requested. Here are the
results:

These Windows 2000 services are started:


Acronis Scheduler2 Service
Automatic Updates
Cadence License Manager
COM+ Event System
Computer Browser
Distributed Link Tracking Client
DNS Client
Event Log
ewido security suite control
InCD Helper
iPod Service
IPSEC Policy Agent
LightScribeService Direct Disc Labeling Service
Logical Disk Manager
Nero BackItUp Scheduler 3
Nero Registry InCD Service
Net Logon
Network Connections
PLFlash DeviceIoControl Service
Plug and Play
Print Spooler
Protected Storage
Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
Removable Storage
SavRoam
Security Accounts Manager
Server
SQL Server (SQLEXPRESS)
SQL Server Browser
Still Image Service
Symantec AntiVirus
Symantec AntiVirus Definition Watcher
Symantec Event Manager
Symantec Settings Manager
Symantec SPBBCSvc
System Event Notification
Task Scheduler
TCP/IP NetBIOS Helper Service
TrueGrid NFS Server
TrueGrid Portmapper
Windows Management Instrumentation
Windows Management Instrumentation Driver Extensions
Windows Time
Workstation

The command completed successfully.


Now note: most of these services start if I do a full boot of Win2K.
However,
I also tried doing the XP upgrade, when running from Win2K "Safe Mode",
where almost none of these services are running. That upgrade attempt also
failed.
I also attempted an upgrade after uninstalling SQL server (which I know
isn't compatible with XP), and almost all hardware device drivers. That that
upgrade attempt didn't work either.

*** I'm going to re-run the XP upgrade attempt, but this time (now
knowing where the setup logfiles and error files are located), I'll be able
to get some better information about where in the SETUP process the system
crashes.

--Bill

 

[Peter Foldes]

Andrew

Another bright post from you. Go away

 

[John John (MVP)]

The biggest problem is probably Symantec software left in autostart mode
while you do the upgrade, running antivirus software is never a good
idea when you do an upgrade. Disable all unnecessary services and
software while you do the upgrade, at the very least put all unneeded
services to manual start or if need be disable them. That you try the
upgrade in safe mode doesn't matter, when you reboot the computer
Windows attempts to start all these unnecessary services while it is
still trying to perform an upgrade. Disable all non Microsoft services
and of the Microsoft services you should have no more than a handful of
them running.

John