Windows won't install right (v.HAL)

[paulc87]

I bought a copy of Windows XP x64 for my new AM2 system. When I first got into Windows, I noticed that most of the usual Windows applications are missing, it's almost like the OS installed in "safe mode", lol. This happened with my old copy of Windows XP pro but changing the HAL to ACPI in setup would fix it. In this setup there are only 3 options, ACPI uniprocessor, ACPI multiprocessor, and Other.

Anyone know which one I should pick, and why Windows won't recognize which HAL I should use?

[marcusj3000]

acpi multiprocessor if it is a dual core and uniprocessor for a single core.

[paulc87]

Will it hurt anything if I just did regular ACPI?

[bbz_Ghost]

Have you considered this might just be some oddball quirk of your particular installation at that time and figured, "Let me install it again just to make sure..." and tried it over again, perhaps with the intent of it not happening the second, or third, or even the fourth time if necessary? :)

I mean, on that hardware it shouldn't take 15 minutes tops to do an XP install, even XP x64. I've had hundreds if not thousands of times where a first install - for whatever reason(s) I simply cannot fathom - was simply shit, crap, buggy, useless, defective, etc... then I redid the installation clean over again, and magically, and I mean MAGICALLY things worked out right.

We had a guy the other day install Vista around here somewhere, it sucked ass the first time, nothing worked right and he had nothing but problems with it, someone said "If you just installed it today or yesterday, just start over" and he did. The second time around was like someone flipped the "troublefree" switch into overdrive and the second time turned out to be the charm, amazingly.

It's worth a shot, seriously. I bet there are a lot of people around here that know exactly what I'm talking about.

Windows is a picky beast, never forget that. :D

[duby229]

bbz_Ghost that has got to be the most ridiculous thing I have ever read.

If he just installed it a few days ago, then it wont be much different or at all different between this time, and the next. Unless if what your saying is that Windows cant consistently install accurately?

[bbz_Ghost]

Guess you don't use Windows much, do you. :)

And just for the record - since I know you're a Linux user - I can and have installed Ubuntu, Slackware, Redhat, Gentoo, DSL, Zen, Puppy, and a huge variety of other Linux distros in the past and very rarely do I get exactly the same setup each and every time, and the results are repeatable.

I even did a standard Ubuntu install recently, booted off the LiveCD for 6.10, waited, when the Desktop appeared and drive activity settled, I did an install on a clean 20GB partition. When it was done and before the first real boot into the hard drive based Ubuntu, I made an image of it with True Image (my tool of choice, yanno).

Then I repeated the process on the same drive, clean install just like before.

Then I did a bit comparison of the two image files - and they weren't identical, by like 30MB of odd data, so... that's my experience. Even Linux isn't the same each and every single time on the same hardware.

Nothing ever is...

[paulc87]

Nope, I've installed over and over again and if I don't pick the ACPI HAL manually, it will install an extremely trimmed down version of Windows, doesn't even have MSPaint

[bbz_Ghost]

Perhaps you might consider checking your BIOS for the old MPS setting related to multiprocessing as far as the BIOS is concerned.

I'm not doubting you, but what you're describing just sounds so weird to me since the ACPI or MPS or Uniprocessor stuff would have nothing - at the bare minimum it should not - have anything whatsoever to do with the applications that get installed onto the hard drive. That's the rub there, and it makes me suspect something is very fishy with the XP x64 that you have.

I don't know this since you didn't specifically say one way or the other, but is this an actual Microsoft manufactured hologram XP x64 CD, right? I'm not being facetious here, I'm not trying to make jokes or cause problems, I'm trying to help so please keep that in mind.

It's just so... well... weird, that installing the OS (even XP Pro) would cause XP Pro or XP x64 to simply leave out Windows components and software that way, that's all. I've been doing Google searches and forum searches for 2 hours now trying to get some type of lead on this, but I can't find a damned thing at all... except this:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/aug04/08-11winxpstarterpilotpr.mspx

While I know this probably isn't the case with your situation, in a lot of respects what you're describing sounds a lot like a situation I encountered back in 2005 when a customer "bought" some software, got an XP hologram CD and when he installed it, he had - drumroll please - incredibly stripped down capabilities compared to what he was expecting and what he was used to after having dealt with XP Home in his job and work environment.

I would almost suspect someone sold you "nLited" versions of XP Pro and XP x64 that stripped out a lot of functionality in Windows after it's installed because the code was removed in the first place.

I'll hush up now and just say this is truly the oddest thing I've heard in years, actually decades of working with computers. This one goes in my long term storage aka brain for future reference. If I do locate any useful info, I'll pass it on and I'll keep an eye on this thread if you resolve it.

Good luck, either way...

[osalcido]

it sounds like setup is not going thru the complete process.... since you said it happened also on regular xp, im guessing its hardware related (either hard drive or motherboard)
:confused:
but then again you didnt list your specs so iono

[paulc87]

Perhaps you might consider checking your BIOS for the old MPS setting related to multiprocessing as far as the BIOS is concerned.

I'm not doubting you, but what you're describing just sounds so weird to me since the ACPI or MPS or Uniprocessor stuff would have nothing - at the bare minimum it should not - have anything whatsoever to do with the applications that get installed onto the hard drive. That's the rub there, and it makes me suspect something is very fishy with the XP x64 that you have.

I don't know this since you didn't specifically say one way or the other, but is this an actual Microsoft manufactured hologram XP x64 CD, right? I'm not being facetious here, I'm not trying to make jokes or cause problems, I'm trying to help so please keep that in mind.

It's just so... well... weird, that installing the OS (even XP Pro) would cause XP Pro or XP x64 to simply leave out Windows components and software that way, that's all. I've been doing Google searches and forum searches for 2 hours now trying to get some type of lead on this, but I can't find a damned thing at all... except this:

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/aug04/08-11winxpstarterpilotpr.mspx

While I know this probably isn't the case with your situation, in a lot of respects what you're describing sounds a lot like a situation I encountered back in 2005 when a customer "bought" some software, got an XP hologram CD and when he installed it, he had - drumroll please - incredibly stripped down capabilities compared to what he was expecting and what he was used to after having dealt with XP Home in his job and work environment.

I would almost suspect someone sold you "nLited" versions of XP Pro and XP x64 that stripped out a lot of functionality in Windows after it's installed because the code was removed in the first place.

I'll hush up now and just say this is truly the oddest thing I've heard in years, actually decades of working with computers. This one goes in my long term storage aka brain for future reference. If I do locate any useful info, I'll pass it on and I'll keep an eye on this thread if you resolve it.

Good luck, either way...


I have MPS set to 1.4 in the BIOS by default, and after i tried my copy I've tried multiple others. Thanks for the reply!

[paulc87]

Also I only have a single core 3500+ AM2, with a kn9 ultra mobo, 2gb g.skill ddr2

[bbz_Ghost]

I'm all the "B's" right about now...

Baffled
Befuddled
Beside Myself (not really)
Bleh

:D

[paulc87]

I guess I'm just going to leave it alone, it installed fine this time when I chose ACPI HAL

[The Donut]

What bbz said is true.

I just reformatted my machine a few days ago, put XP back on - first boot, great, start installing my drivers, reboot, bam, all of a sudden pci.sys is missing - tried all the recovery options, gave up and formatted again.

Next time, I did everything the same, and have had no issues.

I learnt a while ago, as I'm sure many have, that sometimes it's just not worth the time trying to find out 'why'.