I reset the computer and pushed F1 for setup instead of delete (which gave me a page full of gibberish)… The menu was weird and gave me both options on different parts of the same page. I just happened to see the DEL option first because it was at the top of the page. Now I’m just having a bizatch of a time trying to get past the blank screen with the cursor at the top right that does nothing but laugh at me while I attempt to boot XP.
Chocolate Kix, can you give us more details? Exactly what happens when you turn on the computer? Can you get into the BIOS setup? Does that look normal? Is it recognizing your memory? Until the system POSTs normally and recognizes your memory, hard drive, etc. don’t even think about Windows XP.
Second of all, what are the exact specs of your system? What brand and model of motherboard? What type of memory and how much? What are the specs on your power supply, i.e. wattage and voltage limits? (Many strange computer problems are caused by faulty power supplies.) What type of video card?
When I turn on the computer, it gives me the option to setup for few seconds, and then it turns into the black screen with the cursor. When I go into setup, I really can’t detect anything being awry. My memory is recognized, and it does post normally when I first turn it on.
My mother board is a Socket A, and I can’t find any discernable brand name, but it does say that it is an M810D Series, V5.2A S740/November 2002. I have a 1.3 gig duron AMD processor, the video card is onboard, but I think it’s about 32 meg.
Hard Drive is recognizing all the memory I installed…
The power supply is an ATX 400W Max that I believe supports P3 and P4.
Is your hard drive being recognized by the BIOS? Has it been formatted? If not, you’ll need to boot Windows from the CD – the setup program should give you an option to format the hard drive and install Windows on it.
I’ve looked through it a few times and I haven’t seen that option. I may be misreading it, though (I’m an airhead). From what I can tell, though, it does recognize the hard drive
Usually, the first page of the BIOS will list what IDE devices have been recognized. Hard drives, CD-ROM drives, etc. These slots may be listed as “Auto”, which means the computer will just figure out what it has as it boots. This is fine. However, the fact that your computer hangs right after it leaves the BIOS is weird. Either it doesn’t know you have any drives, or some weird options have been set.
Since you can get into BIOS, there should be a command in there to reset to default values. i would do this. I would then look through the different menus and see if you can change the boot sequence. Set it so that your CD-ROM boots first, then IDE0 (hard drive). See if you can boot the computer with your Windows disc in the CD drive.
If that doesn’t work, make sure your IDE cables are connected properly. Your motherboard will support two IDE cables, with two devices on each cable. All IDE devices have to have their jumpers set properly – if you have two devices on the same cable, one has to be master, one has to be slave. If you only have device on a given IDE cable, it may have a separate jumper setting for master, no slave.
Okay, did all that… And set the computer to boot from the CD-ROM…What happened was that the Windows setup started, and then I was told it was going to start windows. Setup ran A SECOND time, and then froze entirely.
If the computer started and tried to do the install, your BIOS is probably OK. I’m starting to think bad RAM here. If you can, try swapping it out with known good RAM and see if you can finish the setup of XP.
Bizarre. At this point, I would blame your motherboard, power supply or memory, probably in that order. Overheating is also a likely culprit. If you can afford it, it may be easiest to just take it to your local computer shop and let them troubleshoot it – finding the problem is much easier if you have spares of everything on hand to swap in and out.
Good idea. I’m thinking that’s the only way to go at this point in order to maintain some level of sanity.
Good idea.
Could be a few things. In you bios you have a NVraM setting this remembers what is installed in the computer & since you changed things, it thinks the old stuff is there. Go into the bios & choose a setting for default or fail safe booting & make sure all virus & boot sector protections are OFF or you can’t load a new boot sector, which it needs to do.
You might want to check the RAM with Memtest86. It’s easy and free.
I agree with this assessment. The bit about Windows setup freezing was the clincher.
If you don’t have any spare RAM, you could try removing it and cleaning the pins (yes, I know they’re not really pins) with an alcohol pad. Also use some canned air to blow out the DIMM socket; some dust would be enough to screw things up. Don’t depend on the startup RAM check to ensure your RAM is good. Sometimes just removing and reinserting the RAM is enough to fix it, but since you have it out, cleaning it is probably a good idea.
Sounds like your problem is XP.
Try W2K to prove the hardware is OK.
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