Windows XP taking very long time to install. Any Helpful hints wel

[Guest]

I just upgraded a coworker's Dell 8100 P4 1.3 GHz machine by increasing the
Memory to 512 MB of Ram and installing a second hard drive. I tested the
Memory prior to doing a reformat and everthing looked great. I put in a
brand new copy of Windows XP Home (Not the Upgrade) and started the fresh
installation process. It formated the correct drive in a normal rate of
speed. Then it started copying the files needed to load windows. This took
about 1 hr to do. Then the Windows install screen comes up saying Approx 39
mins remain. This is the part I have never seen before. It then takes 24
hours to complete the install. At the end it gives an error.

I have tried putting the old memory back in, changing to the new drive,
changing out the IDE cables and installing Windows from a different XP disk
just to see if it did the same thing. In all of the above cases the computer
acted the same. I have done low level formats to the drives and about any
other thing I can think of.

Has anyone ever seen this before or have any other diagnostic tips I can use
to track down the problem?

 

[Allen M]

Hmmmmmmm, let's see here. You tested the memory nad even went back to the
old memory. OK we can eliminate that. You tested the hard drives for disk
errors and even did a low level format. OK we can eliminate that. You even
used different media. OK we can eliminate that. What's left? CD ROM? Seems
to me it is taking to long to read and copy and gets errors when the install
is complete leading me to think it could not ready and write properly as it
missed some files.


"Tommy "STRESSED" Kihlken" <Tommy "STRESSED"
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

 

[Guest]

I have considered that as a possible problem. That is going to be tonights
experiment. I am going to pull one of my CD Drives off my machine and
install it in his to test that out as a possible problem. Thanks for your
help!

If anyone else has any thoughts please post them. I am pleased to see there
is an active community to help discuss these types of issues. So many times
your left with no one to bounce ideas off of. I have worked on and built
many systems but this is a first for me.