Member Avatar for ambrosia

Hi,
I am facing very weird kind of problem. I have a IBM thinkpad R52 laptop. It's configuration is pantium M 1.73GHz, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB hard disk.
I have installed windows xp and fedora core 4 linux. My problem is that I want to reinstall windows xp but my laptop would not boot with xp cd. It is booting with linux cd. I have checked my xp cd and is working fine. When I try to boot from xp cd, it shows the message "checking your hardware configuration" and then screen becomes blank and cd rom goes down.
My another problem is that in the same laptop xp is running very slow.
I deleted it's partition table and then i was able to boot with xp cd. I reinstalled xp 2 times with this procedure. xp worked fine for few days and it again became slow after every install. I am not facing any such problem with linux.
any help and suggestions are appreciated.
thanx in advance.

Dheeraj

  • 3 Contributors
  • 4 Replies
  • 131 Views
  • 5 Days Discussion Span
  • Latest Post Latest Post by ambrosia

Dani AI

Generated

A concise troubleshooting path that builds on comments from , and and focuses on the low-level causes that often make an XP installer hang or make a fresh install behave badly: hardware faults, disk/MBR corruption, firmware/controller-mode mismatches, or missing mass‑storage drivers. The short checklist below prioritizes non-destructive diagnostics before further reinstalls.

Start with hardware health checks (RAM and disk). Boot a standalone memory tester (Memtest86+) and run several full passes. From a working Linux environment gather SMART data and run an extended self-test:

sudo smartctl -a /dev/sda
sudo smartctl -t long /dev/sda

Look for reallocated, pending or raw read/write error counters.

Inspect and repair the partition table / MBR and handle installer-controller mismatches. From Windows Recovery Console use:

fixmbr
fixboot
chkdsk /r

To inspect the MBR from Linux:

sudo fdisk -l /dev/sda
sudo dd if=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1 | hexdump -C

(Warning: avoid writing with dd unless certain; back up first.)

Firmware and controller-mode fixes are commonly effective when XP setup hangs mid-process. Verify and, if available, update the BIOS/firmware, then change the SATA mode to IDE/Compatibility (legacy) before trying setup. If the controller must remain in AHCI/RAID, provide the appropriate XP mass‑storage driver via F6 at setup or slipstream it into the installer.

For persistent performance issues after an apparently successful install, check for driver mismatches and thermal throttling: update chipset and video drivers from the laptop vendor, run sfc /scannow to repair system files, review Device Manager for unknown devices, and monitor disk I/O and CPU with Process Explorer/Resource Monitor. Prioritize hardware test results first; if RAM or SMART shows failures, replace the failing component before repeating installs.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for linux

It actually might be Linux that is acting up on your laptop. It might be making your laptop not read the CD correctly. Why did you have to reinstall XP? Did your laptop come with a restore disk that you can use instead?

And about how the laptop is acting slowly, it may be a virus or spyware. Install and run an Ad-Aware check.

Hope this helps a bit. It all else fails, try Google.

-- Alex

Member Avatar for ambrosia

It actually might be Linux that is acting up on your laptop. It might be making your laptop not read the CD correctly. Why did you have to reinstall XP? Did your laptop come with a restore disk that you can use instead?

And about how the laptop is acting slowly, it may be a virus or spyware. Install and run an Ad-Aware check.

Hope this helps a bit. It all else fails, try Google.

-- Alex

hi alex,
thanx for reply. I did following things to solve the problem :
1) defragmented the hard drives.
2) ran the antivirus scan but no virus found
3) installed spyware and checked system with spyware
but these things did not help, then I inserted xp cd and updated xp( probably it replaces all the system files) and heyyyy it worked and my lappy got back it's nerves. I think some system file had got corrupted but I am not able to figure out how same thing is happening again and again.
btw lappy still does not boot with xp cd. It may be because of linux but I have other dual boot systems also around me and they don't have this problem and they easily boot with xp cd.

--Dheeraj

Member Avatar for Davelray

Linux can have some undesired after effects on hardware. I've even seen a monitor go pop and start smoking after having misconfigured the X server. My suggestion, back up your linux partition then perform a secure erase of the hard drive just to make sure there are no viruses left behind, then install Windows XP clean. Install XP before you reinstall linux and see if Windows behaves properly. If Windows behaves properly you should be fine. If it goes back to the same activity after reinstalling FC4, I would have to start investigation what in FC4 could be causing an issue. For that level of troubleshooting I recommend the linux forum. I am a mere novice when it comes to Linux.

Member Avatar for ambrosia

hi david,
thanx for ur reply. I have done the things suggested by you. I reformatted my whole hard disk and reinstalled both the os's but I got the same problem again. BTW I have worked on many machines with bothe the operating systems on them and they work just very well. Hence I suppose problem is not caused by linux.
And the boot problem that I have described earlier is on my thinkpad lappy only. I have not seen that on any other machine so I think it has something with thinkpad itself.
My lappy has been working fine this time after updating the xp :)
Let's see how many days it goes.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.