Why does repair install hang????

[Industrial One]

It hangs on "setup will complete in 27 minutes" and doesn't finish. No busy light on the HDD and CD. What the hell is going on here?

 

[Don Phillipson]

It hangs on "setup will complete in 27 minutes" and doesn't finish. No
busy light on the HDD and CD.
What the hell is going on here?

The cause could be anything from defective source files to
a failing power supply or hard drive.

 

[Paul]

It hangs on "setup will complete in 27 minutes" and doesn't finish.
No busy light on the HDD and CD. What the hell is going on here?

Have you tried booting your working partition ?

Then, look for log files in that partition and see where they stop.

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article...s-does-windows-xp-create-during-installation-

"XP creates the following log files:

* setupact.log - This log file contains a list of actions in chronological order that occurred
during the graphical installation phase, such as file copies and registry
changes. The OS also stores setup error log entries in this file. XP writes
the setupact.log file to the %systemroot% folder (e.g., c:\windows).
* setuperr.log - This log file contains a list of errors that occurred during installation
and their severity (this log file should be 0 bytes in size if no errors
occurred during installation). XP writes the setuperr.log file to the
%systemroot% folder.
* comsetup.log - This log file contains installation information about Optional Component
Manager and COM+ components. XP writes the comsetup.log file to the
%systemroot% folder.
* setupapi.log - XP writes information to the setupapi.log file each time a .inf file executes,
including any errors. XP writes the setupapi.log file to the %systemroot% folder.
* netsetup.log - This log file contains information about workgroup and domain membership.
XP writes the netsetup.log file to the \%systemroot%\debug folder.
* setup.log - The Recovery Console (RC) uses the setup.log file to gain information about
the Windows installation during repair operations. XP writes the setup.log
file to the \%systemroot%\repair folder.
"

Maybe a check of setuperr.log will tell you something.

*******

The installer also has command line switches. But you're unlikely to
arrange to get at this. I just checked for this, to see if it
had the capability or not. If such output was being created,
by using the debug option, it ends up in %SYSTEMROOT%\Winnt32.log unless
you tell it to go in a named file.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc782342(v=WS.10).aspx

I'm going to experiment with that in a VM, and see what I can get
out of it... You can pull an entire disk into a VM, with this.
Using this technique, I can work on a copy of my OS, will the
original OS is still running.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/ee656415

Paul

 

[Paul in Houston TX]

It hangs on "setup will complete in 27 minutes" and doesn't finish. No busy light on the HDD and CD. What the hell is going on here?

Bad hard drive?

 

[Paul]

It hangs on "setup will complete in 27 minutes" and doesn't finish.
No busy light on the HDD and CD. What the hell is going on here?

I tried investigating a couple things.

First, I tested "winnt32 /debug4", to see if any additional
debug information was available. Unfortunately, that only
logs the first copy stage, and the log isn't continued when
the actual install is running. That dumps to winnt32.log.

I also did a clean install (dual boot), in a VM, using three
virtual drives. To bootstrap the install, I pretended to upgrade
from Win98 (used a Win98 VM). Second virtual disk had a copy
of the i386 folder from the CD. That took several tries, before
I got an uncorrupted copy. Third virtual disk, was a blank
for the WinXP install.

I ran "winnt32 /debug4" from an MSDOS window in Windows 98.
Which starts by copying files, and eventually, the usual
installation process begins.

Eventually, it got this far along. There is a five minute wide
window, and the description says Copying Files.

(Networking dialogs ask some questions, then...)

29 minutes Copying files
24 minutes Completing installation
19 minutes Futzing with your Start Menu

You stopped at the 27 minute mark.

So perhaps file copying isn't working properly for some
reason. Like a bad disk, a bad section in the file system
(even though CHKDSK runs earlier in the install). I
haven't a clue (and couldn't figure out a way to check),
exactly what files are being copied at this point. Could
they be networking files ? Who knows...

But you'd think, there would be an error handler.
And an error message. It shouldn't just stop, unless
it froze for some reason.

Now, we actually have two pieces of info to go on.

1) The Clone operation you originally tried, screwed up royally.
2) The "Copying Files" step doesn't seem to be working.

This is slim evidence, but all I can suggest is there
is something wrong with the 320GB disk.

My procedure (amateur home user), would be to
sector by sector copy the 320GB to the 2TB drive.
Why ? So a disk with presumably good sectors could be
used, to repeat the process. I would use a Linux LiveCD.
Use the "dd" command - because I want as much of the
source material copied as possible.

Note - I'm not going to suggest making any corrections
to the MBR When you copy that way, there will be a
large unallocated section at the end of the disk, but
that's completely irrelevant at this point.

Then, I'd disconnect the 320GB drive, use the 2TB drive,
and repeat the install, and see if I can beat the
27 minute mark. Maybe, the files are bad coming off the
CD, but I would have expected those to be checked earlier
(in part, during the first copy stage). Since I got
stuck part way through the second stage, and had to start
over, one of my INF files didn't seem to get checked until
later. So failures later are possible.

*******

This is a silly question, but I have to ask.

Is the WinXP installer CD, "WinXP Gold" by any chance ?

I don't think the original WinXP CD supports disks larger
than 137GB. It could be, that your C: partition on the
320GB disk, is larger than 137GB, and the install is
choosing to corrupt on a 137GB problem, half way
through the install. You should ideally be using
a slipstreamed SP3 installer CD. Such can be made with
NLite, using the redistributable SP3 file from Microsoft.

http://www.nliteos.com/guide/part1.html

"Integrate a Service Pack" button...

When I bought WinXP, my CD was an SP3, so I was spared
the slipstreaming part. I had to slipstream my Win2K
disc years ago, using SP4 from Microsoft, and at that time
used Autostreamer to do it. But now, NLite is the tool
to use, as I haven't heard Autostreamer mentioned in
some time.

If you're using an SP2 or SP3 disc, then ignore this.

Background info is available here. The minimum SP
level for large disks, is in here, and WinXP SP1
and Win2K SP3 are minimums. WinXP Gold is too old.
I think in my testing, corruption was possible if
the first partition spans the 137GB mark, and you
use an installer CD not meeting the minimum. If the
partition doesn't span 137GB, and other partitions
are past that point, the "high partitions" are just
ignored and not corrupted. Only certain spanning cases
are a real problem. And the corruption can be bad
enough, to not be repairable.

http://web.archive.org/web/20070316080228/http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

This is likely a red herring, but I've run out of other
things to suggest. The clone operation probably
wasn't affected by this, as the OS was likely
supporting big disks at the time you did that.
I'm just guessing at the installer CD right now
being too old or something (like, you're using
a different CD than the one you originally installed
with).

It would take way too many coincidences for this
to be the root of the 27 minute problem. But, what
are the odds there's a bad spot in the 320GB drive ?

Paul

 

[dadiOH]

It hangs on "setup will complete in 27 minutes" and doesn't finish.
No busy light on the HDD and CD. What the hell is going on here?

I once had something like that. At about the same time. The problem was
that a file couldn't be copied to the HD. Sorry, don't recall the file or
the fix.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Maybe just ready for a change? Check it out...
http://www.floridaloghouse.net

 

[Industrial One]

The problem's fixed. Thanks to Paul for his dedication and useful input as always.

The issue was that the drives had no letters assigned to them. When I booted up with a partitioning CD, I noticed the letters weren't there.

When I tried to assign the usual letter to the system partition, it wasn't available and upon looking at the letter map it showed that it was designated for "Hard Drive 0, slot 6 (Not Attached)" so I changed it to apply to this disk that has always been attached in the same spot but to the computer it was apparently Slot 2.

I guess when switching hard drives (the new 2TB drive that I intended to boot as first drive is located at the bottom so it autoboots as second drive unless this is promptly changed in the BIOS) it screws with the slot designation (wherever this is stored, I assume in the MBR.)

I was able to reproduce this problem by attaching my 2TB cloned drive and booting up (forgetting to set it as first drive again) and once again was welcomed by the frozen log-on screen. Re-assigned drive letter to it again, rebooted and problem was again solved.

My question is, don't OS/hardware manufacturers keep tabs on this sort of thing? If this gave a power user like me this much grief, what do regular users do when they bought a new hard drive and suddenly their system locked up? I was lucky to have a partition rescue CD.