eMachine and Windows XP Pro

I was given a 3 year old eMachine. I do not like XP Home, so I have installed XP Pro on an old 300GB hard drive I installed in the eMachine. Now, when windows XP is loading, it hangs where the Windows "splash" screen is showing. The screen with the little dot that runs seft to right in that small little "slot" below the Microsoft Windows XP and the windows logo. I have also upgraded the RAM from 512MB to 1GB. Because of this hang, I have tried using a different old hard disk, but it still hangs.

Any ideas what could be wrong?

 

Hello Vic,

It may not be hardware, but since you're here, try using the original 512 RAM, if only to eliminate that possibility.

What model eMachine?

 

Thanks for the quick reply!

I bought the 1GB after XP would not launch with the 512MB memory. Actually, as I remember, it stopped at about the same place before. Are you thinking I might have a bad copy of Win XP Pro?

Model is C2881.

All I've gotten from eMachine is hogwash. The fella really did not sound like he had a clue of what he was talking about on the phone. The person I got on the on-line chat gave me the directions to reload XP Home from the recovery disks, right after he made the comment, "To install XP Pro, follow these ..." So, that's why I thought I should try WindowsBBS. I've seen some very excellent answers here. Hey, it's free! Ops, I already bought a membership. Well, it's close to free, and it is good information.

 

Hi Vic,

The only way I can think of to narrow this down would be to reinstall the Home recovery discs, which I assume is a factory image and not an XP cd.

If that works, that would be indicate either a bad Pro disc or a hardware/driver incompatability with Pro. When looking up your model, I noticed the phrase "certified for XP Home ". What eMachine means by that, I don't know, it could mean BIOS incompatability. Have you been in the BIOS?

 

I have not done anything in the BIOS. Any suggestions there? Remember, this is a free machine. And if all fails, I will put the 1GB memory into my "big" machine that I use to earn a living.

Thanks!

 

Hi Vic,

Can't tell you anything specific to look for - not familiar with eMachine BIOS versions.

You should look in there and compare it to the one on your currently working system. With luck, it may be something obvious. One such could be the HD size. I noticed the stock system comes with an 80 gig HD. You put in something much larger. Was the original HD ATA or SATA?

When you got this system, was it a working system with Home, or did you install Pro right away?

 

It was a working system, but slower than slow! It got a little faster when I deleted all three existing user profiles and files after creating one for myself. I felt that clearing the whole system off and reinstalling fresh would really help it run faster, and as I don't have the recovery disks for the system, don't have XP Home for myself, have an extra copy of XP Pro, etc., etc., etc. I just thought it was a good idea. Ops! But if I can get it working, then it will have been a good idea. )

I have tried to look into the BIOS, but don't know what key or keys will get me there. Rather than having everything being posted to the display during boot, there is an eMachine splash screen. It stays until Windows actually starts loading. Any ideas what keys I should try?

Thanks!

 

According to this: http://www.interactivewhiteboards.com/support/bios.htm it's the del key.

Looked up your chipset: http://www.intel.com/products/chipsets/845gv/index.htm and answerd my own question about HD type - ATA 100. And no seperate graphics card.

I'm going to ask one of the hardware guys to take a look at this thread - I'm getting out of my depth here.

 

Hi,

I would expect that the XP Pro disk does not have the correct drivers for some of the hardware.

If you had the recovery disks, you could install Home then do an upgrade to Pro. How you will go about it without the recovery disks, I don't know. They may not want you to be able to use your own version of Windows.

To get into the BIOS I usually tap the F1, F2 and Delete keys (all at once, rapidly). If you press the Esc key it should show you what happening behind the splash-screen.

Try going into Safe Mode, but I would not hold much hope.

Matt

 

I usually direct Emachine users to this site:
http://e4allupgraders.info/

Specifications and see Links:
http://e4allupgraders.info/dir1/motherboards/socket478/vc37gv.shtml

See if there is information here:
http://www.pcuser.com.au/pcuser/hs2.nsf/web/960FF763497FE621CA25717C002C6175

Matt

 

Charles and Matt,

Thank you for all these links. This might take a wee bit of time, but I will come back and let you know what I find.

thanks again!

 

Thank you again for all the help. I'm not sure which parts did the trick, but what I ended up doing was again replacing the hard drive with a 400GB drive, installing windows XP once again, and it worked this time. I was able to finally get the DEL key to work so I could look at the BIOS. That problem was very simple, but sure had me going for over 20 minutes. I did not have the keyboard pluged into the computer. Funny how the computer does not respond to keyboard commands when it's not plugged in. If the computer had ever completely booted into windows I might have noticed, but while still in the bootup sequence, I just thought the dumb eMachine was different than all the others. Well, it was just the same lesson learned for the upteenth time. (That lesson is that it is usually my fault, not the computer's)

thanks for the help!

 

Thanks Vic for the feedback - did turn out to be hardware after all