XP hangs after initial installation phase

[BigBri]

This is on a computer that I built and have had XP working
on for a year so there shouldn't be any HW issues related
to this. (I think.)

My most recent problem with XP started after I made some
changes in the BIOS which caused the computer to not
boot. After correcting that I found that XP wouldn't boot
because of the hal.dll thing. I tried a bunch of stuff
from the KB to correct that with no success so I tried a
reformat/ reinstall of XP. The following scenario repeats
exactly the same no matter what I do. And I have done a
lot of things.

XP will install to the HD I choose (all four HDs are
visible) but after the initial reboot when XP will boot
for the first time from the HD the computer hangs with a
black screen and no error messages. From this point
forward the computer simply will not boot to XP.

After several attempts to remedy this I decided to make a
dual boot system. So I installed W2K on another HD. That
OS will boot up just fine and I can even install XP after
this and get the OS choice screen when the computer boots
up, but if I choose XP the above scenario repeats. I can
boot into safe mode and the list of services ends at
mup.sys which from what I have read is usually the last
service to load anyway so that seems to indicate that
something is hanging up as the computer is getting ready
to start.

I have installed XP on this computer a bunch of times and
I have never had something like this happen. Any ideas
anyone? Thanks for your time.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

Go into the bios and choose bios default values - save and exit. Try again.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Guest]

Well thanks for your time Mr. "Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-
\)" but after trying that suggestion I still have No Joy.

I have unplugged my other 3 HDs and am trying to get this
thing to boot on the one HD, but the end result is still
the same. I guess Bill must really hate me. :-D

Thanks again dude.

 

[Crusty \(-: Old B@stard :-\)]

Have you recently added additional RAM?

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

 

[Guest]

No, everything has remained the same up to and since the
change to the BIOS that seems to have initiated this
problem. The weird thing in my mind is that Win2000 will
install and operate just fine with this same hardware
configuration. I have put everything in the BIOS back to
its original state. I was feeling pretty ambitious about
my setup at the time so I tried the 'Use Optimized
Settings' when this all started. Oopsie.

XP is great, but God, when something goes wrong with it,
what a pain in the a$$.....

Take care.

 

[Alex Nichol]

No, everything has remained the same up to and since the
change to the BIOS that seems to have initiated this
problem. The weird thing in my mind is that Win2000 will
install and operate just fine with this same hardware
configuration. I have put everything in the BIOS back to
its original state. I was feeling pretty ambitious about
my setup at the time so I tried the 'Use Optimized
Settings' when this all started.

It sounds to me as if when you did your format and reinstall, the format
did not actually happen. My suggestion for doing that is to do it as
part of a reinstall of the system after booting the XP CD direct. Enter
Setup, and after the license agreement take New Install. When it asks
you to confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete the current partition
and make a new RAW one to be formatted at the next stage

The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go ahead
and make a new install over the top of the old one

This ought to give you a clean independent install: if you want a dual
boot you would need to start from the earlier OS (eg win2000) and run
the XP CD from it; taking New Install and again hitting ESC, deleting
and making a new partition for the install to go into.

BTW the hal.dll message can be very misleading. It indicates almost
always that there is a fault in the line of boot.ini so that the boot is
looking for Windows in the wrong place (probably wrong partition number)
- hal.dll just happens to be the first file it looks for