Everything seems to go fine, everything copy's to the hard drive and it is partioned fine, but when it reboots to go into the GUI mode for the rest of the setup it just sits on "Press any key to boot from cd-rom....." no matter how long I leave it.

I've checked the boot sequence it is A, CDROM, C.

Are there any known faults of this happening? Could it be a shit video card?

Btw, this is Windows XP Pro.

change the boot order then try again set to C A CD

Is this a custom build or pre-built? If it's something like a Dell, check to make sure you don't have any external storage devices plugged in (like a thumb drive or USB hard drive). I've run into several that won't boot if those are plugged in.

Also, have you tried removing the cd from the drive before rebooting? I realize that you shouldn't have to, but just in case...might give an error message that would help us diagnose further.

I can honestly say I've not run into this specific problem before, but if it's Windows, anything is possible. :p

It is a custom build. I know it has a shit gfx card. I tried just booting from C but it just basically sits there nothing much happening.

It is a custom build. I know it has a shit gfx card. I tried just booting from C but it just basically sits there nothing much happening.

Is it stopping at the same exact spot? If not, where does it stop?

It basically checks everything is ok, which it is. Then goes to the next screen. And it just sits there and does nothing. It has information up the top like what is primary master ect that is all fine and just below it has. A flashing "_".

Thanks.

It basically checks everything is ok, which it is. Then goes to the next screen. And it just sits there and does nothing. It has information up the top like what is primary master ect that is all fine and just below it has. A flashing "_".

Thanks.

I wouldn't think video...the drivers wouldn't have kicked in yet by that point. It's sounding like a hardware failure...but which component...that's difficult to say.

You can boot from the XP CD, which means the processor and motherboard should be ok. Installation on that end completes, so the hard drive seems fine. I don't know of any memory errors that would stop the booting dead like that...

If you have 2 sticks of memory, remove one and try again. Then, if the same problem, switch them out. That will at least eliminate the memory as a cause.

Next would likely be either a boot CD (dos or linux) or the Recovery Console. The former would be attainable online (in ISO format, of course.) The latter involves the Windows install CD. If you go through the initial steps, the first selection you can make should let you access the Recovery Console (unless it's the OEM version...bastards took it out, if I remember.) Either way, once you have a command prompt, you can run a "chkdsk /f" or, better yet "chkdsk /r", though that second one takes a LOT longer. If the /r comes out clean, then the hard drive is pretty much eliminated as a suspect.

Try those out and we'll go from there.

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