Long story made short!

Just received a second hand PC, was working fine until I loaded some new programs and setup broadband.

Thereafter when it starts it goes into Windows error checking mode, saying that a file is missing, and continues to reboot itself without entering windows. Then after entering windows, it reboots itself after about an 20 minutes of use.

It was suggested that I replace the harddrive which I did.

I am now trying to load windows NT 200 again on it. However, halfway through setup it reboots ityself. It always does this half-way through setting up the network connections.

I did read once that te solution could be to replace a cable, I'm not sure which one.

If you have heard of this or have another suggestion, please let me know.


Thanks,

if you have two plate memory, try to use one memory, maybe one of your memory is not working properly

Yes it has two harddrives, shall I disable the second one?

use one of your DDRAM or SDRAM if you have two plate, maybe one of your DDRAM or SDRAM is not working.

Try disableing on-board LAN before installation.

Rebooting during an OS installation is almost cirtainly RAM induced. I have had the same problem with a laptop i found during some general searching. Just unplug one of the RAM sticks but leave the one with the bios on or you won't get very far ( No. 1 RAM slot has bios ) If the system works fine after that then attempt to replce the RAM you removed and see if it still works.

take out one hard drive until the machine is set up. also check your ram by trying one stick at a time and starting up to see if it gets a good POST one beep, use that stick or both if it POST's ok also check the count up to see if it matches the RAM to be sure.
also if it was a branded pc you may have a hidden partition on the drive, you can usually download the drive mfrs tools from their web sites and low level format the whole drive to remove this.
finally check the BIOS as some older systems (ie HP) do not support xp without a bios flash to update them
ps Fiv3fing3r the ram is nothing to do with the BIOS this is held on the CMOS chip, there are many reasons for a machine to reboot during installation and many reasons for an installation to fail

yeah sorry *shoots self in foot*

panic not my feet are full of holes!