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Having problems installing XP

K

kevineugenius

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 9, 2006
Messages
1,415
I don't know exactly where to put this thread, so hopefully someone who knows reads this.

Scenario: bought a shuttle PC from a guy of good reputation, so I'm sure it's workable. He installed Ubuntu linux (which I know .0001% about) and it boots to ubuntu just fine. The machine is for my dad, who does not have the brain power to learn even as little as I know about linux. Thus, I want to use the included CD to reinstall Windows. So, I insert the CD, boot from the CD, and it loads all the preliminary drivers and whatnot. Then it says "Setup is Starting Microsoft Windows" for the first time. Then it reboots. Every time. I have reseated graphics and memory, I have reset all the BIOS options to "optimized defaults". I don't know if Linux is the culprit or not, and I'm running out of ideas as to why this machine won't allow me to install anything. It was a cheap machine, for a cheap old man, and I think we could easily get around all this by getting a new HD, but that seems rather... expensive for the problem at hand. Should I get a USB floppy drive, Win98 boot disk, and Fdisk the HD? Any ideas?
 
If you have no intentions of using Linux on this rig, go to http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/ and download this free program. Ultimate boot CD will write zreos to the entire HDD, wiping out everything on the drive. After you do this, use your XP CD to reformat the drive and you should be fine. I would also suggest clearing the boot record before doing the reformat. Also, try reseating the memory and CPU. If all the steps we gave you here do not cure your problem, you might have some defective hardware.
 
Wouldn't writing zeroes to the entire drive kill the MBR? I have reseated the memory, but Shuttle's are kind of a pain so I'll reseat the CPU if all else fails :p
 
I wiped the whole HD down to zeroes using killdisk, and upon booting from the XP CD, it did the same thing. It struggled a little, like it was going to work for like 15 seconds, then rebooted...

Any other ideas?
 
Try a new HDD, sounds like you have a bad boot sector on your existing HDD. BTW, writing zeros to the entire drive will have no negative consequences.
 
Reformat the hard drive as a secondary drive in another Windows PC using Disk Management (rt click My Computer, Manage), then reinstall in Shuttle and try to install Windows?
 
I used a different CD and it works... So, I guess if anyone has a spare XP home CD I can use, send it over.
 
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