XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

Hello,
My Windows XP Pro SP2 setup gets through formatting my hd(500gb) and all the way down to Installing Windows but once the install bar gets to about half way and says installing devices my comp restarts and it loads up to this point and starts to install and then restarts again in a continuous loop, its at about 34 mins left (to give you an idea of where it is in the d/l). I set my bios to optimal defaults and I messed with them as well but can't find out what is wrong. My boot device is my CD drive. I built the computer, first time I've done it and I had windows xp home sp1 on there but I couldn't update to pro SP2 so I reformatted my hd since I didn't have anything on there yet and now I can't get XP Pro SP2 to install. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Here are my specs If that makes a difference:

desktop mem- 2x 2gb
hard drive- 500 gb
Motherboard- Foxconn P45A-S LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel
Processor- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz 6MB L2 Cache LGA 775 65W Dual-Core
vid card- Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16


I appreciate any help.

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

any chance the board has onboard video ,if yes try installing winxp with out the pci-e card installed

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

It's panicking on driver installation. You usually see this on repair installs but it can happen if windows doesn't like some installed hardware (usually video). Pull out everything but video, one ram chip ram, CPU, and HDD. If at all possible put a different video card in (since your board doesn't have onboard video). Since this is a pretty capabile system you probably upgrade relively often, and may have a PCI-E video card laying aruond to swap for.

I haven't faced this problem recently, but that particular problem is a very common one (like I said, more often in upgrades and repairs but still common) so you might google "XP install crashes at 34 minutes" for more information on the issue.

Just good practice:
Make sure the disk is clean of scratches and smudges.
If an install fails (on a clean partition) more than twice start from scratch, reformatting the partition and installing all new files.

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

I don't have another vid card sitting around, the only one I do have I don't have the serial number for. would I be able to take my old computer and connect my hard drive to that, install sp2/3 and then just connect it to my new setup and then install my drivers for my motherboard/vid card?
Also when I had sp1 on there and installed my vid card an error came up saying that it isn't certified or had a logo or something. would that affect this at all?

thank you.

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

video card =shouldn't need the s/n ,just the model #

you old computer most like will not boot to the drive to do what you say .
don't worry about certified or logo go say yes !!!

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

I don't think I have the model # sticker on it either, someone gave it to me but it's old so I didn't use it. I'll double check on that though.
So my old computer(it ran sp2 with no problems) won't install sp2/3 on the hard drive so that I can transfer the hard drive to my new computer? It has no extra mem, only the one hard drive in it and everything is integrated(vid/sound).
That is what I did I just clicked yes on them but wasn't sure if that would affect it haha. Thanks for clearing that up though.

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

you are losing me,what do you actually mean by this [So my old computer(it ran sp2 with no problems) won't install sp2/3 on the hard drive so that I can transfer the hard drive to my new computer? ] ,

.what im saying is if you install winxp on a hardrive in one computer it will not bootup if you put it in a different computer because of the different hardware in the 2nd computers .

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

Ok, that is what I was asking. So the only way to get xp to install on my new comp is if I change the vid card? I haven't been able to find anything else out online and won't be able to try to fix it until later this afternoon.

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

Does anyone think that this will work? I came across it in a google search but don't want to waste my time when I finally get the chance to try and fix it if it won't work.

* Let the XP hang up at 34 minutes remaining for the first time
* remove the CD from the CDROM and reboot
* Dont enter the CD when the installation asks for it, instead open the DOS prompt (Shift + F10)
* goto C:/Windows and type setupapi.log, hit enter
* The setupapi.log file opens in a notepad
* Scroll to the very last few lines in the file and search for the word “inf”
* You will notice that in the last few moments the installation created a file with the extension “.inf” before dying out (in my case it was the faulty modem for which XP created the file mdmcxpt.inf).
* It means that the device mentioned in the last few lines is faulty and you have to make the installation skip through it.
* Close the notepad and go to the folder C:/windows/inf in command prompt
* Browse through the files to find the “.inf” which was related to the faulty device.
* Straightaway delete the inf file (eg: del mdmcxpt.inf)
* now put in the XP installation CD and Continue the installation

It will not put in the drivers related to the faulty device and so it wont freeze this time

Re: XP Pro SP2 on newly built comp
 

That's really for "upgrade installs, but there's a chance that after you delete the faulty driver (that windows just put on there) it will work.

XP can be transferred from one computer to another with Various success. it's not like 98 or 2000 where it worked every time, but I'd say about 25% of the time you can put an XP hard drive in a different system and it will load.

PS: Your current system uses a PCI-Express video card. An older AGP will not work, but if this card is a PCI (not very common but it does happen) you can put it in one of the PCI (NOT PCI-E) slots and use that. Don't worry if it's "certified for windows" XP can use ANY video card that will fit in a modern computer.