WIN XP installation loop [Hardware related?]

Hi. I looked through the forum and didn't see exactly what I am experiencing.
I have a home build PC. Here are the specifications:

PS: 650 Watt Power King
MB: ASUS A7V266-C ACPI BIOS Rev 1015 Beta 002
CPU: AMD Duron 1992 Mhz Processor
RAM: DDR 786MB
Video Card: GeForce Ti 4200 Ver. 4.25.00.34.00 64.0 MB RAM
HD's: WD 80 GB (new), WD 500 GB (backup storage)
Generic CD-ROM Drive
3 1/2in floppy drive

I use my PC for gaming. I am currently using my laptop. Here are the details of my PC. Two hard drives. Maxtor 20 GB and WD 500 GB. Maxtor was OS drive, WD was storage drive. I've had problems with the Maxtor since I can remember. Lost all data more than once. Decided to get a HD for storage and put my games and gaming files on it.

Every so often I get the "NTLDR is missing" error. I decided it was time to get a new OS drive. I still have the Maxtor and have not touched it since I got the error and took it out of the PC. I bought an WD 80 GB HD for my OS drive. I disconnected the my slave HD (WD500GB) to install the new one.

The WD 80 GB HD is set as master IDE 0. The CDROM is set as master IDE 1.
The WD 500 GB HD will be set as slave 0, but as of now it is not connected to the PC.

Problem is with installing WIN XP Home SP2 OEM. I have tried a number of different processes to attempt to install WIN XP. Formatted and partitioned with the WD Lifeguard Tool set. Formatted and partitioned with WIN XP SP2 CD. Both time this is what happens.

After the formatting process is complete, the initial install completes smoothly. The problem comes on the reboot. Goes through the first screen listing your video card, bios parameters, RAM, master drive, slave drive, ect., at the second screen listing my CPU, RAM, IRQ's, cache, ect., instead of asking if I want to boot from the CD, it automatically boots from the CD and then it goes back into the WIN XP setup screen again. When we get past the EULA and such, it shows only unpartitioned space on the HD. The previous installation was like it never happened. Help.

 

Take the CD out when it is doing the first reboot or any other reboot, put it back in when prompted. You can do this when you see ( "video card, bios parameters, RAM, master drive, slave drive, ect., at the second screen listing my CPU, RAM, IRQ's, cache ") flashing on the screen, but before ( "of asking if I want to boot from the CD ").
XP setup must be able to boot from the drive at this point to continue.

About the unpartitioned space. If you were attempting to format the entire drive as the C drive with the XP CD with FAT32 as the file system, you are limited to 32 GB partitions. The NTFS file system available from the XP CD does not have this limitation.

 

Okay, This is what I tried. I went to install XP again and it said non-compatible partition. I put in the WD CD rom to format/partition (NFTS) the HD and was successful. Reboot, insert WIN XP SP2 Ver 2002 disk, it successfully does the initial install. Then I tried what you said, and I got:

Boot Failure. Please enter boot disk...

So I put in the XP disk and it went straight to the Windows setup (blue screen not splash screen) and loaded the files for WINDOWS it loaded on the initial install. Now I get to the "existing partition" with an "Unpartitioned space" message (keep in mind this is after I formated/partitioned with the WD boot disk). I try to create a partition on the WD HD (76317 MB), and it goes back to the previous screen of "existing partition ". And this is the new loop. I'm not completely ignorant when it comes to PC's and I know I followed the instructions.

As for partitions on the HD, I am using the full HD for the boot disk. It's only 80 GB, so there should be no need more than 137 MB partition. I am formatting the HD as NFTS.

What should I try next?

One more note - I am in the Air Force so my responses may be delayed a little more than normal. Thank you for your time and patience.

 

Hi there msk30, I am a little bit confused here, you say you want to have the system drive (boot) as 80 Gig full size of the HD. Now I have done that many times over and have never had the need to use any third party formatting device I only use the Win XP CD and all you need to do is give the size of the C drive that you want and in your case that would be 80Gig select Full Format NTFS and you're on your way. If you get the loop then do as Markp62 suggested, but take note of when to re-insert the CD you have to be a bit careful if you insert to late you've missed the boat.
The only other time that I have had a loop after Loop was when my mobo had faulty capacitors.
hawk22

 

I completely understand what you are saying and I have done it (loaded XP flawlessly) with the PC I have connected to my entertainment system. For some reason I keep having problems with this other pc. So here we are again. I will go step by step telling you what I see. The numbers will refer to the screens in the setup process.

1) Windows XP Home Edition Setup
Welcome to Setup.
This portion of the Setup program prepares Microsoft (R) Windows (R) to run on your computer.

To set up Windows XP now, press ENTER.
To repair....ect, ect, ect.

:::I hit ENTER:::

2) EULA Agreement

:::I hit F8:::

3)The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.

Choices: Setup XP , create partition, delete partition.

In box it shows,
:::76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]:::
:::Unpartitioned Space 76317:::

:::I hit C to create a partition:::

4)You asked Setup to create a partition on 76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

Choices: create partition, go back.

Minimum size is 8 MB
Maximum size is 76309MB
Create partition of size (in MB): 76309

:::I hit Enter to create the partition:::

I go back to screen 3...

3)The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.

Choices: Setup XP , create partition, delete partition.

In box it shows,
:::76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]:::
:::Unpartitioned Space 76317:::

:::I hit C to create a partition:::

4)You asked Setup to create a partition on 76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

Choices: create partition, go back.

Minimum size is 8 MB
Maximum size is 76309MB
Create partition of size (in MB): 76309

:::I hit Enter to create the partition:::

Then I go back to 3) again. This is the loop I speak of. The only way I can get out of the loop is to format/partition the HD with Western Digital Data Lifeguard tools. Otherwise I just go back and forth between screen #3 and #4. And the step your talking about, Hawk, the full NFTS Format or the Quick format I cant even get to because I cant get WIN XP CD to partition my drive.

Not knowing what to do, I am going to hook up an old mouse and keyboard, take out all PCI cards (Graphics is AGP) and try again. I'm just at a loss. As for hardware, I am using 18in Ultra DMA (80-Conductor) IDE/ATA Cables (brand new). Not sure what else to say, but if you can think of anything else let me know.

Thanks for all your help, it's really appreciated. =o)

 

Although WD is a good drive to have, perhaps the drive is faulty?

 

I am not entering a partition size, only using the default that the setup gives me when I get to screen 3. As for the faulty HD, it could be, but my experience is that it is usually something other than the HD. It was sent via mail, arrived in a foam case, and it is not refurbished (no scrape marks on the sides). I had this problem before and it turned out to be a problem with the master/slave settings, but this time those are set correct as far as I know. WD HD on IDE 0 set as master, CD-ROM drive in IDE 1 set as slave. Other ideas? I took all the extra hardware out. Currently I'm running with the WD 80 GB HD, 256 MB RAM, GeForce 4200 Ti grahpics card, ASUS MB. So I'm at hardware mins now, just need some ideas no matter how far fetched about what might be getting in the way. I cleaned the CD rom as well. I just finished trying again. I used the Data Lifeguard Diagnostics, ran the quick and extended test. HD came back with no issues. Wrote 0's to drive using Diagnostics disk. Restarted PC again and went through screens 1-4 finally got to screen #

5)choice of quick format NFTS, or full

Chose full

RESULT - after the drive went through the entire process of formatting the HD I got this:

Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk maybe damaged.

Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is a SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated. Consult your computer manual or SCSI adapter documentation for more information. (It's an EIDE Drive not SCSI)

You must select a different partition for Windows XP.
To continue press enter

::ress Enter:::

6) The following list shows existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.

Choices: set up Windows XP, create partition, delete partition.

In box it shows,
:::76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]:::
:::C: Partition1 [NEW (RAW)] 76309MB (76309MB free):::
:::Unpartitioned Space 8MB:::

:::Hit enter:::

7) The partition you selected is not formatted. Setup will now format the partition.

Choice: format partition using NFTS quick, or NFTS

:::choose full:::


RESULT - after the drive went through the entire process of formatting the HD I got this:

Setup was unable to format the partition. The disk maybe damaged.

Make sure the drive is switched on and properly connected to your computer. If the disk is a SCSI disk, make sure your SCSI devices are properly terminated. Consult your computer manual or SCSI adapter documentation for more information. (It's an EIDE Drive not SCSI)

You must select a different partition for Windows XP.
To continue press enter

Ideas? Thanks for the help.

 

Hi, yes markp62 could be right, about the drive being faulty.
If you have any option to stick this drive into another PC as a slave and try to format the drive that way from Disk Management. If you still get the same result than you can be almost certain that the drive is faulty.
Worth a try I guess.
hawk22

 

It looks like we all have some suspicion about the integrity of the drive itself but perhaps there are a couple of things you can try before scheduling a funeral and sending it to the graveyard.

Please verify you are using an 80 wire, 40 pin IDE cable with the blue lead plugged into the motherboard and the terminating connector plugged into the Hard drive. If yes, you may even want to try another cable. If its only a 40 wire cable, get an 80. Verify drive jumpers are set as Master and Slave or both as Cable Select and you may want to play around here and experiment. To my knowledge, WD drives never have had the same kind of problems as some Hitachi/IBM Deskstars which actually required CS on some motherboards to function properly. However, your board is from the same era so there may be a remote possibility.

Secondly, (and I knowingly open myself up for criticism here) I have never been a proponent of formatting with anything other than the respective Windows Operating System Disc or DOS itself. Since you used the Data Lifeguard tools to format this HDD, my old fashioned failsafe approach would be to slave it in a different machine (very important), FDISK it with a Win 9X floppy and remove all partitions. Then create one and only one partition. Now, remove the drive from that machine and jumper it as per above and put it back in the machine you want to use it in. Now try your setup again and format it with the XP CD and select NTFS, not NTFS quick format.

I'll keep my fingers crossed and will be awaiting your feedback.

Regards,

 

Here is the manual:
http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/socka/kt266a/a7v266-c/a7v266-c_100.pdf
3.8MB

These are my suggested settings:
P. 73 Load Setup Defaults (you can reset the FSB to 133MHZ after Windows is up and running).
P. 71 Quick Power On Self Test -> Disabled
P. 71 Reset Configuration Data -> Yes
P. 49 Read about the Auto setting. If you are still stuck, change to User Defined and enter the drive parameters manually. They should be on the label of the drive, if not, you will need to find the drive's manual at the WD website.

I see you have installed the latest BIOS upgrade, I am little wary of BETA BIOSes though and I would consider back-dating it to the previous "full" version. Choose a DOS method of doing the flash (don't run it under Windows).

The diagnostics utilities in Lifeguard should tell you if the drive is faulty. The last time I ran Lifeguard, it now includes a Low-level (zero) format utility. If Rockster's method is unsucessful, I suggest you zero format the drive, remake and format the partition.

If a Dynamic Drive Overlay was used on the drive (or even on a different drive in the same system) at some time in the past, I could see it causing problems like these.

Matt