XP64 install problem

[enderman]

Hello all.

I have been trying to install XP64 to a new hard drive over the last weeked but it keeps stopping after it gets to the line where it says "starting windows setup" in the line at the bottom of the blue screen ( apologies if that is not the exact phrase ).
I am doing this with a homemade boot disk intergrated with sp2. I have burnt 3 variations of the disk and the same thing happens. The other hard drive on my system runs xp pro and win2000. I am trying to install XP64 to a new 500g unformatted drive. Dont know what to do now? I've tried getting to the install/format screen with my xp pro disk and that works fine.
Any suggestions as to the reason why this is happening

MSI K8N Master2-FAR running Dual Opteron 285's
250 gig hard drive
4 gig ram. Kingston KVR400D8R3A/1G
XP 32bit sp2 and Win2K
NV Quadro FX 3400

[patio]

How have you constructed this CD and why not just use the original ? ?

[enderman]

I wanted to intergrate the service pack to save hassle.
I have done it with win2k and xp pro no problem.
Constructed in nero 8 and I also tried a couple of the free image burners. No joy.

[patio]

Try nLite...

[enderman]

will do...but I remain sceptical that it's the burn that is doing it. I feel it must be my system but I cant think what it would be.
Will let you know how I get on.

[patio]

If you suspect the burn process itself DLoad and burn a Live Ubuntu CD and see if it acts properly...
I use IMGBurn...

[enderman]

Ok.
I thought id try something before I went the ubuntu route and seen as the memory was giving me problems in the thread "XP triple boot" ( I fixed that problem by disabling the memory hole remapping in the bios and Xp now boots with the total 6 gig installed ) I decided to remove the ram modules from banks 5 and 6 and then see if it would install. And it did! So now XP64 is now in its own partiton on my new 500 gig drive. And all went fine till I had it all installed and booted for the first time to the new 64 bit OS and I get a blue screen and the error" page fault in non paged area ". Tried swapping the ram around and every combination of my 6 modules work fine up to 4 gig but not the full amount of 6 gig. Dont know where to go from here.
XP64 should have no problem with the full ram quotient seen as it's almost a copy of Win server and the motherboard is workstation quality so i'm flummoxed.
There are settings  in the chip and memory page of the bios that i'm not sure what they do but I haven't tweaked or overclocked it in any way so unless i'm supposed to enable or disable something else that I haven't........
Somebody...please!

[patio]

Try resetting the BIOS back to it's default settings...

[enderman]

right..first job tonight.
I'll make a note of any settings I have changed and try that.

[patio]

In your original post you mentioned 4G of RAM...that's why i didn't suspect that being an issue...
In fact there is a Microsoft KB article on issues installing to anything over 4 and it's suggestions are exactly what you did...remove RAM.

[enderman]

errr.
Does that mean that I cannot run the full 6 gig under XP64 on this board?

[patio]

No.
It only means that i knew prior to this that there was an issue with installing X64 on more than 4G of RAM...
It should run fine.

I'm running Vista UltimateX64 on 6G and have no issues...

[enderman]

"should run fine"...some hope!
Now that i've got XP64 onto the drive I put the two ram strips back in so I can use the full 6 gig and I get a blue screen with " page fault in non paged area" Eh?
I'm presuming it refers to memory in some way. Reset the bios to failsafe defaults and optimised defaults and still crashes. removed the ram to take it back to 4 gig and it works fine.
Help!

As a ps:
Why do I have two program folders in Xp64? One with  programsx86 and one just programs?

[patio]

The x86 folder is where older apps that are not 64bit run from ...this is perfectly normal.

You need to check your MBoard documentation for setting up more than 4G of RAM.
Are all the sticks the same clock speeds and timings ? ?
Because if not they are going to bang heads no matter what OS is installed.

[enderman]

All the ram is identical. Te same manufacturer and codes, id's etc.
The motherboard manual has little or no info on this. Just where to put the banks of ram for dual or single channel. It only supports 6 gig at the top clock speed of 400MHz DDR which is what im trying to run and its all DDR ECC Registered CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM Dual Rank, x8.

[patio]

Please post some info on the machine...MBoard CPU RAM etc...

[enderman]

My specs:
Board:  MSI K8N Master2-FAR NF4, Dual Opteron S940,( 285's)  PCI-E (x16), DDR 266/333/400 ECC-R, SATA I / II, SATA/IDE RAID, ATX
Processors: 2 x AMD Opteron OSA 285 FAA6CB Matched Pair Dual Core 2Mb
graphics : quadro 3400
ram: 144-bit DDR registered ECC DIMs. 6 of Kingston 1GB 400MHz DDR ECC Registered CL3 (3-3-3) DIMM Dual Rank, x8.
Two hard drives. One 250 gig running Win2K and Xp pro and one 500 gig for XP64.

I was thinkling. Maybe its a board bios thing thats the problem. But i've never flashed a bios before and i've heard it can ruin the machine if your'e not careful.

[patio]

Seems like this is common...

Clik Here...

Hopefully there is a solution...i didn't read the whole thread.

Best of Luck.

[enderman]

Thanks for the link.
I cant tell what half of the references mean though because i'm not that clued up on adjusting voltages and timinings, etc.
I may well have to accept that i've wasted money on ram that doesn't work and end up building a new system. Thanks MSI!
Oh how I love computers!