XP Pro Installation Does Not Complete

[Bob Simon]

I do desktop support for a school. This sometimes involves
re-installing XP Pro SP1 (Volume License) on a variety of computers.
I've come across one where the installation fails; it's a Sager D27ES
notebook. I hope someone can suggest something that may help
troubleshooting this problem.

During the installation I remove all existing partitions, create a new
one (19 GB), and format the drive with NTFS (not the Quick method).
Setup copies all the files from the CD and reboots to the beginning of
the "Installing Windows" phase.

It gets past where I enter the product key, the admin psw, the time
zone, and typical network settings (but this machine is not connected
to the network and therefore is not part of the domain). It completes
the Installing Windows phase (registering components) and just begins
the Finalizing installation phase (Saving settings). "Setup will
complete in approximately: 9 minutes" The computer then reboots and
returns to the beginning of the "Installing Windows" phase. Repeat
from the beginning of this paragraph.

Since it fails while saving settings, my first thought was that this
is a hard drive problem. It's a Toshiba MK2023GAS set up as primary
master. Using some of the drive utilities on the Ultimate Boot CD I
found and repaired some drive defects but the XP installation went
exactly as before.

Can someone suggest something else to try?

 

[KC Computers]

During the installation I remove all existing partitions, create a new

one (19 GB), and format the drive with NTFS (not the Quick method).
Setup copies all the files from the CD and reboots to the beginning of
the "Installing Windows" phase.

-t gets past where I enter the product key, the admin psw, the time

zone, and typical network settings (but this machine is not connected
to the network and therefore is not part of the domain). It completes
the Installing Windows phase (registering components) and just begins
the Finalizing installation phase (Saving settings). "Setup will
complete in approximately: 9 minutes" The computer then reboots and
returns to the beginning of the "Installing Windows" phase. Repeat
from the beginning of this paragraph.
Can someone suggest something else to try?

Memory errors can cause all sorts of weird issues. You can try free
ones from:

Memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

 

[Bob Simon]

Memory errors can cause all sorts of weird issues. You can try free
ones from:

Memtest86: http://www.memtest86.com/
http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

KCC,
Thanks for the suggestion. I have Memtest 86 on the UBCD. I ran a
couple of iterations which came up clean. I'm now running Windows
Memory Diagnostic which will continue until I stop it. In case it
also does not find a problem, do you have any other ideas?
Bob

 

[KC Computers]

During the installation I remove all existing partitions, create a new

KCC,
Thanks for the suggestion. I have Memtest 86 on the UBCD. I ran a
couple of iterations which came up clean. I'm now running Windows
Memory Diagnostic which will continue until I stop it. In case it
also does not find a problem, do you have any other ideas?

What other hardware do you have connected? What video card?
Did that version of Windows used to work fine on that
computer?

 

[Bob Simon]

What other hardware do you have connected? What video card?
Did that version of Windows used to work fine on that
computer?

Did I mention that this is a notebook computer? I unplugged the
PCMCIA wireless Ethernet card and external mouse before I started the
installation so there are no external peripherals connected.

The motherboard supports video (SiS 315, 32MB), audio (Sis AC'97),
Ethernet (Realtek RTL8139), and all the other typical stuff. Here is
some other info about the system:

Pentium 4A Mobile, 2.4GHz
SiS 650 Chipset
Phoenix PCI PnP BIOS (04/29/03)
256 MB DDR SDRAM
Toshiba SD-R2412 DVD-ROM/CD-RW
Toshiba MK2023GAS 20GB HD set up as primary master
PIO 4, UDMA 5 (ATA-100)
Single NTFS Partition

I don't know what version of Windows was installed before this
computer was brought to me but I expect it was XP Home. Why would
that matter as long as the notebook meets the minimum requirements for
XP Pro?

IIRC, I once experienced a similar problem on a computer that had a
Maxstor drive. I used the MaxBlast utility to partition and format
the drive and then installed XP Pro without repartitioning or
reformatting. This was a while ago, but I believe that this
combination of steps allowed the XP installation to complete. I'm not
confident that I've got all the details exactly correct but for
purposes of this discussion lets assume that I'm reporting this
accurately.

Can you come up with an explanation for why this procedure would work
when having XP repartition and reformat the drive would not let the
installation complete?

 

[Bob Simon]

Did that version of Windows used to work fine on that
computer?

Just tried to install XP Home and found the exact same problem.