XP Installation Lockup At Approximate Midpoint

[OMC_Joe]

An older computer, running Win98. I've been trying for a couple days to upgrade this
machine to Windows XP Home Edition.

All goes well until the install program gets to the point where the "Install Setup" is
at the "Preparing Installation" portion of the program. There's a small horizontal window right beneath that "Preparing Installation" title that states "Progress".

A slow creeping yellow progress indicator shows that the program is running smooth UNTIL that yellow progress indicator is approximately 1/8" beyond the word
"Progress", at which point the computer locks up.

In the CMOS, I've tried disabling the Video BIOS shadowing, disabling the CPU internal & external cache, enabling the Mem Hole... all at one time and a variation of settings, hints given in the XP docs. This didn't help at all.

In MSCONFIG, I've tried disabling everything in the START portion, also tried various
combinations to no avail. Also made sure that Power Management was set to "Never" on all items.

MB is a SOYO SY-7VDA
Mem is (3) 256mb DIMMs (768mb mem)
HD is a 80GB with 71GB free.
File system is 32 bit (FAT)
CPU is a Cyrix 370 running at 650 MB (100 x 6.5).

The only cards plugged into the MotherBoard are:
PCI Netgear GA311 Network card
PCI Palit Daytona 8mb AGP Video card

I thought perhaps I was running out of memory, but the XP docs state that the minimum mem required is 64mb and I'm way above that. Thanks in advance for any and all advice/help.

Joe

[JJ 3000]

How are you getting to msconfig? Didn't you wipe (format) the drive? Are you booting to the XP disk or are you trying to install windows from within windows?

[OMC_Joe]

The machine is running Windows 98 SE. The problem exists when attempting to upgrade to Win XP using the Win XP Home Edition Installation CD.

I use the START, RUN, type in MSCONFIG, hit [ENTER] route to access MSCONFIG.

With Win98 runing, I insert the WinXP CD, then autorun starts the install process.

[patio]

You should be booting to the CD...not launching it from within Windows.
Are you sure this machine will run XP ? ?

[OMC_Joe]

Yes, the machine will handle XP. I had the XP disk check it out for compatability and all went well.

I'll try the launch method and report back.

[patio]

You may need to enter the BIOS and set CDRom as 1st boot device.

[OMC_Joe]

BIOS was fine, I had it set to boot from the CD if a disk was in there.

Attempting to install XP from "Launch" rather than from inside "Windows" resulted in a warning that I already had another operating system installed, and to install or attempting to install yet another operating system would cause problems.

Rather to attempt the above, I once more attempted to install WinXP over Win98 from within windows and was successful. I changed nothing and have no idea why I had the problem initially. All is well, many thanks for the input, I do appreciate it.