xp home install

[graeme]

i am writing this on behalf of a friend because the
following problem has screwed his computer completely.

he had installed xp home (U.K. edition) successfully,
until an unknown problem developed that led him to
uninstall xp.

when he tries to reinstall xp home he gets no further than
the setup screen that says "19 mins of install left". he
can't get a desktop and using a system restore to return
the computer to factory settings isn't an option as he has
nothing backed-up.

i only have this limited information and any help you
could give would be much appreciated by both of us.

with regards,

graeme.

 

[Malke]

i am writing this on behalf of a friend because the
following problem has screwed his computer completely.

he had installed xp home (U.K. edition) successfully,
until an unknown problem developed that led him to
uninstall xp.

when he tries to reinstall xp home he gets no further than
the setup screen that says "19 mins of install left". he
can't get a desktop and using a system restore to return
the computer to factory settings isn't an option as he has
nothing backed-up.

i only have this limited information and any help you
could give would be much appreciated by both of us.

with regards,

graeme.

Hi, Graeme. There are two ways of installing XP - a clean install where
the hard drive is formatted first and an upgrade install where the new
operating system is installed "on top" of the old operating system. If
your friend is doing the latter, he should try a clean install instead.
Formatting the drive will wipe all current data, so he would expect to
reinstall programs from cd and restore data from backups. If he is
already doing a clean install and the installation is failing, he
probably has bad hardware. Start with a RAM test - I like Memtest86
from www.memtest86.com - and let the test run for an extended time,
like overnight (unless you get errors immediately). If the RAM is good,
then run a hard drive diagnostic utility, which you can get from the
drive mftr.'s website.

If you or your friend need more help, please post back.

Cheers,

Malke