OK! I'm at my wits end :)

[warbling_beetle]

Short story shortened - my compy crashes. I go to format & reinstall windows XP.
                                - when windows XP setup gets to the "setup is starting windows..." right before the prompt where you press enter to install, r to enter recovery console, or some random button to do some random function (i really don't remember) my computer will freeze, preventing me from going any farther.

Now; everything i have discovered in my attempts to figure out what's wrong: - My HDD is perfectly fine (ran a diagnostic)
                                                                                                                 - RAM = perfectly fine (again, diagnostic)
                                                                                                                 - I AM ABLE TO INSTALL UBUNTU! A free linux program; however, i'm linux illiterate and really don't have enough time in my life right now to figure it out
                                                                                                                 - My windows XP CD is fine, seeing's how i tried 3 of them and one of them is absolutely for sure perfectly OK.
                                                                                                                 - My cd-rom drive is fine, seeing how i went and bought a new dvd-r for 25$ and it still doesn't work
                                                                                                                 - HD = primary master, DVD-R = secondary slave

Hopefully i didn't miss anything. OK! So... any more ideas for me to try? Or... should I just bite the dust and go get a new mobo and see how god likes me then.

[warbling_beetle]

Eh, i guess i could have thrown that in... I went and had some 'fun' trying to get crap to work, ended up grabbing Dr D's (?) boot floppy and attacking my computer with fdisk, wiped all partitions, created new ones, and tried to install windows w/ "x:\I386\winnt.exe" in the command prompt... it copied it's files, i restarted, it didn't work.

However, I will try whatever it is you're suggesting when i get home later today.

P.S. 512 RAM.

[dl65]

warbling beetle...... Lets back up a bit ....... How long had your pc been working ok ....with win XP before it as you put it "My computer crashes" ?
Did you have all the updates and in particular SP2 .......?
What were you doing when the "CRASH" occurred ?

My Windows XP CD is fine, seeing how I tried 3 of them and one of them is absolutely OK.

 I'm just a bit curious as to how you have 3 original Win XP cds or are they all copies ?

let us know

dl65  

[warbling_beetle]

a) Windows XP was running fine for probably 6+ months; I was using it mostly for gaming, MSN, homework, web browsing, normal stuff.

b) I have a legit XP home, copied XP pro, and my friend lent me a XP home legit CD which we had used to install XP on his computer a few days prior.

c) Not to sure what you mean by same controller, my motherboard only has 2 IDE slots, one for primary one for secondary. HD jumpers are set to master, CD set to slave. Not to sure what you mean here Mac.

d) Going to the XP cd and doing my formatting and partitioning from there is what i'm trying to do; however, it won't load properly and freezes before i can get anywhere with it.

e) Yes, i did have SP2 & all updates. I went out for a couple days, my sister phoned to ask if she could use the computer to download music for our grandmother's mp3 player, I said ok, got back and she said it had been acting weird so she shut it off. This is when I found the problem. The crash was basically this; hardware would load, and XP would go to the "windows shut down improperly, safe mode, ect." screen... i would select an option, or let it choose automatically, and instead of loading the computer it would restart and start the whole chain over again.

f) formatting to ntfs; but if i had to settle for fat32, i REALLY wouldn't care ;P

[bsaff]

i knows the answer!!!!!

although its over a year later so you probably solved it, or went out and bought a new pc...

nevertheless:

i think your problem is with sata controller bios setting, i had exactly the same with a dell dimension just the other day.
ensure the sata/raid controller is set to work with raid/ata NOT raid/ahci

hope this helps someone out there

Ben
UK

[CBMatt]

Is a bump of such magnitude really necessary?

[Dilbert]

Sure, why not. Just don't do it too often, bsaff.

[viking]

bsaff, our friend, he has IDE drives. No SATA! He has no SATA drives.
We are sorry to hear that you had problems with your Windows.
Bye-bye, see you soon 
(I'm mean, I know Don't get mad, I joke sometimes )

[Spoiler]

Try to open the Bios setup screen and load the defaults. If you made no changes to the bios than you don't have to do this step.

Next pull everything out of your computer except the hard drive and CD and floppy and video card and RAM.

Get a boot floppy and put FDISK on it than boot your computer from it and run fdisk to wipe all your drive settings. Than create one big "C" drive with FDISK

exit FDISK and than shut your computer off. Than boot with your XP CD and run the install like normal

The 3 major reasons for this is the system is trying to load the wrong driver for a add on board...ie. modem or USB card...etc... or your system can't read a hidden part of your hard drive. Dell likes to add a 10 gig hidden drive to do a system restore from. Or you have a bad block on your hard drive and XP gets to it and stops. You will need to swap out a hard drive to test this idea.

I would also suggest you look your system up on dell and read how to do a system restore. You may find that to be easier.

[patio]

I guess no one's noticing the 15 month bump...