What makes windows xp pro fail during new install

[marknina]

Been wondering why it hangs during theinstall, and aslo why the new system only sees one of my cd basically the cd/rw HP not the MSi so I have to load from cd/rw could that be problem

[Beemer]

Your system spec's may help diagnose the problem.

Cheers!

[M_Six]

If you're having difficulty loading XP, strip the system down to one hard drive, one cdrom, and one stick of RAM (at least 128MB, though). Once it's all loaded and configured, you can put everything back. XP doesn't always load easily on machines with multiple sticks of RAM or several IDE connections. Load it stripped, then add in.

[bailey]

anytime I have run into any problem with the install has been due to a bad stick of ran, at least one that it did not like, funny part is that one bad stick of ram did work ok in another system.

[jannybean2002]

I had a problem with xp pro, I tried over and over to install it. I eventually gave up and took it back to the shop, swapped it for xp home and it ran like a dream.
Hmmmmm....I wonder if xp pro will upgrade onto xp home now........thats quite a costly though...

[rpertusio]

Originally posted by jannybean2002
I had a problem with xp pro, I tried over and over to install it. I eventually gave up and took it back to the shop, swapped it for xp home and it ran like a dream.

That sounds more like bad install media (CD) that could have been fixed by replacing the CD.

marknina, strip down your system (no children under 17) and try it, as M_Six suggested. I have seen situations where a USB device (or card readers) and other add-ons make an XP install lock up or refuse to make progress.

- rp

[marknina]

Kinda new to this what exactly do i need to do I know this might be dumb question but don't want to mess up anything

[marknina]

This by the way is OEM copy of windows xp pro from newegg
is this aproblem known to exist with oem

[rpertusio]

To 'strip down' the system, you would simply pull out any parts that are not needed to boot the computer.

While your computer is powered off...
- Unplugg the IDE (flat ribbon) cables from all the hard drives and CD drives that you are NOT installing on/from.
- Take out any extra cards in the PCI slots
- Remove one of the sticks of ram (assuming you have more than one)
- Detach any devices plugged into your USB/Firewire/etc ports unless you absolutely need them (keyboard/mouse)

You shouldn't have to touch anything in the BIOS. When you're all done, you should have the following devices:
Motherboard, CPU/Heatsink, 1 stick of memory, Video card, 1 hard drive (to install on), 1 CD drive (to install from), a keyboard/mouse, and possibly a floppy drive. You (shouldn't) need anything else connected.

Now see if XP installs

- rp

[marknina]

do i need to change that setting to 512