PC OS Install help needed!!!!

[jsomethin]

Ok...so I just bought the following new for my MAME.

Motherboard
CPU
Memory
Hard Drive
DVD Drive
Floppy Drive

So....I boot up with a Windows98SE boot disk....fdisk the drive, then format it. Everything's fine.

Next, I get a Windows XP Install disk (which has worked before)....I boot off of that CD...and the install starts.....then at some point early on in the process, I get a kind of blue screen of death.

I replace the dvd drive, and the cable...same error.

I try a different Cd....same error

So..now I get a Windows98SE boot disk....when I try to boot from there with CDROM support, it can't "load the device driver".

I try a new CD Drive...same thing...new cable...same thing.

Now, the BIOS recognizes the drive....and I can boot from the drive with the XP CD..it just crashes at some point during install.

But when I try either a Win98SE boot disk and a WinNT boot disk, but neither OS will recognize either CD/DVD drive.


Any suggestions would be MOST helpful!!!!!

[DaemonCollector]

Sounds like the controler on one side or the other for the CD is flakey...id check the CD against another motherboard or CD drive...

[AmericanDemon]

That sounds like a memory issue.  Has nothing to do with your disks.  

However, you dont need to use a Win98 boot disk if you are gonna load WinXp.  Just pop the disk in and it will load the OS install.

[jsomethin]

That sounds like a memory issue.  Has nothing to do with your disks.  

However, you dont need to use a Win98 boot disk if you are gonna load WinXp.  Just pop the disk in and it will load the OS install.

Yeah, I tried that....that's when I consistently get a 'blue screen of death'

[jsomethin]

Sounds like the controler on one side or the other for the CD is flakey...id check the CD against another motherboard or CD drive...

I've tried two different CD drives.....same thing on both...and one of them was pulled from a working pc

[cdbrown]

Make sure you go into the bios of the motherboard and check all the settings.  Disable the virus check as this can cause problems.  Also make sure that the FSB, multiplier, vcore, memory speed and timings are all correct.  As this is a new system chances are some of these settings are to the default of the motherboard which isn't in accordance with the cpu and memory you have installed.  The default speed on my mobo is FSB100 multiplier 10, but my chip is 133x11.5 and memory is 166MHz.

After that get memtest from www.memtest86.com.  I normally boot it from a floppy but you can use cd (the download contains all the install files necessary to make the disks).  Let it run for a while to see if you come up with any memory errors.

Then get back to us on how it went.

Cheers
-cdbrown

[DrewKaree]

just a question - is the XP disc a copied disc or an honest-to-goodness hologrammed Microsoft disc?

I had the same issue with a copied disc, but got everything to work just fine with another disc.

[shmokes]

Drew, this is Microsoft we're talking about.  I think you mean, "honest-to-badness" disc.

I've had this problem before too (it was with a copied disc -- though that same disc has worked in lots of other computers just fine).  It's damn near impossible to diagnose.  You'll be pulling your hair out.  My recommendation is to throw out everything you've got and start from scratch.  Otherwise prepare to have a year or two shaved off your life due to the stress and frustration you're in for...

[jsomethin]

just a question - is the XP disc a copied disc or an honest-to-goodness hologrammed Microsoft disc?

I had the same issue with a copied disc, but got everything to work just fine with another disc.

Well....it was a non-hologrammed XP disc.

But....when I got an honest-to-goodness NT floppy boot disk, it still wouldn't recognize any CD drive (even though the BIOS did)

[jsomethin]

So.,..turns out the problem was with the BIOS. Upgraded that (it was off by one version), and everything worked. Which was odd, because the BIOS never had a problem recognizing the drive..it was only when the OS was loading when the problem occurred.

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the replies!

-j