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Weird Windows XP Setup problem

richardm

Philosopher
richardm
Joined
Aug 6, 2001
Messages
9,248
Hi -
A friend of mine has reported a strange problem with a Windows XP setup.

He was doing an installation which didn't complete due to a power cut. The installation is sufficiently incomplete that Windows won't start when the machine is booted, which might be expected.

However, it appears to have done enough to make the system get to the point where it restarts itself and continues the installation process, because when he boots from the Setup CD, it begins that second stage, which in turn fails because it is incomplete.

It is definitely booting from the CD, apparently, and there is no interactive stage where he can bail out of the process.

Is there a way of forcing Setup to restart from scratch?
 
Doesn't pressing F8 while the computer is booting (either from HD or CD) allow him to choose a command-prompt-only option ?
 
Wudang said:
I think he'll need to start with the HD - can you make a bootable floppy for him, boot from that and use fdisk to reset the hard drive?
Click to expand...


Yeah, I thought of that. Unfortunately he's many miles away, so it would have to be by post. Might come to that yet though!

He does have a bootable disk which was briefly exciting, but it doesn't have fdisk or format on it, and can't find them anywhere else on floppy. And the HD is NTFS so we can't even kill the files with what's built into command.com. And just to compound the hopelessness, there are no CD drivers on the floppy either, so we can't read the appropriate versions off the XP CD (assuming that they are there and not compressed, and assuming that they'll run under whatever version of DOS is on the floppy anyway, which they probably won't).
 
El Greco said:
Doesn't pressing F8 while the computer is booting (either from HD or CD) allow him to choose a command-prompt-only option ?
Click to expand...

It does - but it's not as simple as it used to be. Just going for the the Command Prompt Only option attempts to load a whole bunch of other stuff - which isn't there due to the incomplete setup - and crashes out.

On a working machine, it even displays a mouse pointer and a login dialog, and then displays the command prompt in a window.

It's really incredibly frustrating.
 
Does he have a copy of 98 around?
Install an earlier version just to get a working OS. Then wipe the drive and start over with XP.
 
Brian said:
Does he have a copy of 98 around?
Install an earlier version just to get a working OS. Then wipe the drive and start over with XP.
Click to expand...

He has, in fact. But it's on CD and it's not a bootable one; presumably it's expecting DOS to be present.
 
Doesn't sound like it's booting from the CD to me. Then it _should_ have an interactive stage where you could choose between setup, repair or abort.
 
bjornart said:
Doesn't sound like it's booting from the CD to me. Then it _should_ have an interactive stage where you could choose between setup, repair or abort.
Click to expand...

That was my initial thought. However, he assures me that it is, and has tested it with another bootable CD (sadly, one that only has a memory test on it).

Obviously when you're not there to see what's happening, you can't be quite sure. I remember years ago talking a customer through a problem, and got him to restart the machine. It came back exactly as before - took me a few minutes to figure out that when he said was turning the machine off and on, he was actually turning the monitor off and on. Confusing one, that was.

Anyway, if memory serves there is a point in the Windows setup process where it reboots the machine and then continues from the hard disk. I think that setup is stuck in that phase, and the CD is checking to see whether there's a setup in progress or not, and not offering any interactivity at all.
 
So, the conversation goes like this...

Me, for about the tenth time today: "Are you sure you don't have any DOS disks lying around, or any of my old toolkits? There used to be loads - have a poke around that disk box".

Him: "Yes, I've looked, but I'll look again. (sounds of clicking disks and musing) Games, pman.exe, printer drivers, ms-dos 6, Thieves and Kings, OPAC, Unit-"

Me: "Hang on a moment. Just go back a couple of disks"

Him: "Printer drivers? I don't think we've even got that printer any more"

Me: "I think I may have found a way out of this problem".

Two minutes later we have booted to DOS setup which has obligingly done the FDISK and format for us, which was nice of it and saved me the trouble of trying to remember how to use FDISK.


So - thanks for the help and advice. We are out of the woods :)
 
richardm said:
We are out of the woods :)
Click to expand...

.. But have just been run over by a truck.

On restarting Windows Setup, it fails in exactly the same way. So it appears Bjornart was right, and it is RMA number time

:hit:
 
Edited away because you already fixed the problem and the forum software will let me erase my post but not delete it.

David
 
Just my two cents in case it helps.
Choose the boot up sequence in the bios to boot from the cd rom, then when it boots from the cd rom it should give you the option to repair the installation. I can't remember this exactly but the first repair option won't work because it says you need something or other. So then continue with the setup and the next step or two will give you the option again to repair. This repair option will work.
 
FFed is correct. Do not select the first offered "repair" choice instead continue as if you are installing XP for the first time. The last screen will offer the choice of "repair".
 
1. Boot to PC BIOS

2. Do a hard disk low-level format (may take some time)

3. Start XP install from scratch.
 
FFed said:
Just my two cents in case it helps.
Choose the boot up sequence in the bios to boot from the cd rom, then when it boots from the cd rom it should give you the option to repair the installation. I can't remember this exactly but the first repair option won't work because it says you need something or other. So then continue with the setup and the next step or two will give you the option again to repair. This repair option will work.
Click to expand...


Yeah.. apparently it wasn't offering this though. But I never saw it with my own eyes, so I'm not sure that what I've reported here is genuinely the case.

The installation has, in fact now been successfully completed. Apparently, he booted to DOS again and ran the Win 98 setup program, which offered him the opportunity to format the disk to HPFS (huh? HPFS for Win98? not likely!) and it all worked after that.

My vote is that the XP install was hanging at the Hardware Detect stage, and after I got him to disable the onboard video card, sound card and modem it worked successfully.

But it's like complementary medicine. The right drug corrects the problem, but it's the magnetic necklace that gets the credit. Ho hum!
 
Zep said:
1. Boot to PC BIOS

2. Do a hard disk low-level format (may take some time)

3. Start XP install from scratch.
Click to expand...


Blimey, do BIOSes still have a low-level format option? I don't want to sound like a smartarse, but I thought of trying that at one desperate point, but rejected it because I didn't think they'd still offer it these days.

Even way back when, it had a reputation for killing hard disks, IIRC.
 
richardm said:
Blimey, do BIOSes still have a low-level format option? I don't want to sound like a smartarse, but I thought of trying that at one desperate point, but rejected it because I didn't think they'd still offer it these days.

Even way back when, it had a reputation for killing hard disks, IIRC.
Click to expand...
It's the newer motherboards that have the automatic HD discovery that usually have low-level formatting options in BIOS as well. The older ones required using the accompanying floppy with the disk-controller diags, etc (i.e. REAL old).

Yes, they can kill HD's sometimes, but it's rare, in my experience. More often than not, the HD was on the way out anyway, and a low-level format simply "confirmed" its demise.

We use this a lot in commercial situations to salvage perfectly good HD's that have been walloped by viruses beyond hope of salvage by the usual means. It's savage but nearly foolproof.
 
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