Laptop reformat freezes on "Setup is starting Windows" - Page 2 - Calgarypuck Forums - The Unofficial Calgary Flames Fan Community

Cliche · 10-20-2009, 01:02 AM

If you can get a bootable USB drive or know someone with a working CD burner, I'd recommend obtaining a UBCD and running one of the memory tests for an hour. If it doesn't come up with any errors, then you'll have to move onto some of the other tools, like the hard drive fitness ones or the wiping ones.

I would follow sclitheroe's advice and see if you can get into the bios and adjust the bios controller to read the drive as being IDE rather than AHCI, as the ancient installer for xp doesn't know how to handle some of the controllers natively.

mykalberta · 10-20-2009, 09:11 AM

Is this a newer or older laptop.

If its a newer one look at the above post.

If its an older one I would still say HD or RAM is your issue. I would go with HD personally.

Phaneuf3 · 10-20-2009, 09:35 AM

If it were me, I would try booting with a linux live CD. It might point you in the right direction to diagnose a hardware problem.

dissentowner · 10-20-2009, 09:57 AM

Throw it out, buy a Mac

Bobblehead · 10-20-2009, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dissentowner

Throw it out, buy a Mac

Remember this post when people whine about thread crapping in Apple threads.

ricosuave · 10-21-2009, 06:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GirlySports

It doesn't get past step 3.

If you can, try a different CD/DVD drive or if not, clean the lens on the existing one

Or, try another XP disk, as long as it is the same type.

Had that happen to be before, turns out the CD wasnt spinning enough to be read.

GirlySports · 10-21-2009, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ricosuave

If you can, try a different CD/DVD drive or if not, clean the lens on the existing one

Or, try another XP disk, as long as it is the same type.

Had that happen to be before, turns out the CD wasnt spinning enough to be read.

Still looking at it, think the HD is fried.

GirlySports · 10-22-2009, 10:22 AM

Yup it's the HD.. Think I still have a warranty but that's going to be a pain in the butt to find the paper work. Think I'll just go buy one for like $60.

Thanks for everyone's help!

mykalberta · 10-22-2009, 10:28 AM

And the winner who said it was a bad hard drive was who...

Thats right, your friendly right wing IT guy - MYK.

GirlySports · 10-22-2009, 05:53 PM

Oh oh

Got a new harddrive, same problem

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cliche

I would follow sclitheroe's advice and see if you can get into the bios and adjust the bios controller to read the drive as being IDE rather than AHCI, as the ancient installer for xp doesn't know how to handle some of the controllers natively.

I can't find anything that says IDE in the BIOS options.

Can't find "SATA Mode"

jammies · 10-22-2009, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jammies

Depending on the laptop you have, there might be preinstalled diagnostics you can access from the boot menu - if so, try running those to see if you have a hardware issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Got a new harddrive, same problem

Ya gotta run some kind of DIAGNOSTICS if you're ever going to get this going - you can guess your way through a whole lotta cash otherwise. Even something as simple as loading up the Ultimate Boot CD would help.

GirlySports · 10-22-2009, 07:58 PM

Ok I've gotten past the freezing during installation problem, now it can't find the new harddrive.

"Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed on your computer"

Unfortunately for me, the laptop I'm working with has Phoenix BIOS, which doesn't allow me to alter any advanced BIOS options, including disabling AHCI. So I'm stuck without the ability to install XP on my new hard drive.

Need to dig more

Rathji · 10-22-2009, 08:30 PM

Edit: I typed this out before you posted, so it is pretty much useless. Rather than deleting it, I am leaving it since it might help someone else.

You could try a Live CD ( Fedora ) or bootable USB key (Ubuntu) which would give you some tools to figure out what is wrong.

GirlySports · 10-22-2009, 08:38 PM

Would installing Windows Vista solve this problem? I could get a CD.

Rathji · 10-22-2009, 09:36 PM

Is there an updated BIOS you could flash?

GirlySports · 10-22-2009, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rathji

Is there an updated BIOS you could flash?

I have no idea what that means :P

jammies · 10-22-2009, 10:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Would installing Windows Vista solve this problem? I could get a CD.

No, the BIOS is reporting to Windows that there is no hard drive. Doesn't matter what OS that you use, that problem is with the hardware, not the software. You can check this by going into the BIOS and seeing if any hard drives are recognized before you even boot windows.

Does the hard drive have jumpers/DIP switches on it that you can set to change its operating mode? Check in the instruction manual (if any) that you got with it. Somehow I doubt it's the hard drive anyway, I'd bet your controller is dead since this is the 2nd drive you've put in there that hasn't worked.

Jedi Ninja · 10-22-2009, 10:40 PM

I've been feeling the need to add something helpful to this thread.

Have you tried this.

Cliche · 10-23-2009, 05:24 AM

Dumb question-

Does your bios detect the hard drive?

If yes, then the problem is purely with the fault of xp's inability to talk to the controller properly.

In the old days, this would mean, grabbing the appropiate ahci drivers off of the appropiate website, making a floppy disk, and stabbing f6 for all it was worth as the xp setup engine started. (Ye olde: Press F6 to install Third Party Driver) and hoping that nothing was wrong with either the floppy or the text file, and it would read correctly and that it was coded properly.

Of course, there's been the death of the Floppy, and getting 1.44mb disks is nigh impossible. (Hooray!)

Which leaves the only other way to integrate a driver into the windows xp disk, is to use 3rd party tools like nLite to integrate the files onto a burnable CD.

http://www.computerhope.com/help/phoenix.htm#03

If the laptop bios is anything at all similar to what is linked above, you should be able to change the controller type.

Other dumb question because right now all you will be getting is generic answers since you haven't mentioned manufacturer or model number of your laptop.

(Bottom of the laptop, there should be a label beside the windows sticker listing manufacturer and P/O number.)

Knowing who the manufacturer is and what specific laptop it is will allow this generous host of nerds the ability to obtain drivers and write detailed specific instructions on what you are dealing with.

Otherwise, you could get a vista cd and install that, but vista sucks so I suggest geting windows 7 instead (apparently it's been flying off the shelves the hype has been so high) and dealing with the new opportunities to deal with newer (Undocumented Features)

Bobblehead · 10-23-2009, 09:27 AM

What?

No the bios is the program saved on chip on the motherboard.

If XP was needed to read the hard drive, but XP was on the hard drive, then you have a conundrum.

The bios is the initial little utility that knows how to access the core components of the computer. In the old days it could see the screen, keyboard and floppy drive. Today it can access a boatload more things (depending upon the computer/motherboard/bios).

When you first turn a computer on it does a Power On Self Test (POST) and this is a quick check of basic functionality - do I have memory I can access, do I have the correct power levels, is a keyboard required and plugged in, etc. If that fail you are going nowhere.

In this case, the fact that Girlysports has gotten to the "Setting Up Windows" screen means that POST was successful, the CD/DVD is working at a basic level, and the screen works.

But the brand and model of the laptop would be helpful. Many laptops in the past 5 years have come with a rescue partition hidden on the original hard drive. This is so when you call them they can tell you to just press a few buttons and it (logically) rebuilds the way your hard drive was when new.