Keyboard freezing during installation (I think its the keyboard, anyhow.)

About 2 months ago, I was merging partition's in partition magic, and got an error, which in some way, nuked my harddrive. At the time, I had no idea how I could get windows back on my computer (This computer was built by a friend of a relative, and he didn't give us the cd, and I have no way to contact him) So, I went ahead and installed linux, just as a crutch till I could get Windows back, (The PC is used mostly for gaming, so linux isn't working too well for its uses).

Well, the other day I was going through some boxes, and found my old windows XP SP2 reinstallation CD from dell, along with the CD key i'd written on the case it was in. So, I attempted to install it, and it worked fine, the setup got to "loading windows.." then came to the screen where it asked for me to hit enter to install windows, R to recover a broken windows installation, or F3 to quit.. I hit enter, then f8 to get past the EULA, and when it came to the partition screen, the lights on the keyboard (until this point numlock had been on) turned off, and the keyboard froze, not allowing me to go any farther.

Thinking it was the fact that the keyboard was USB, and I was using a converter or put it in it's original slot, I took off the converter.. same problem, only this time it stopped at the EULA, So I tried with a non-usb keyboard, same problem, stopped at the selection screen, then the EULA, and once at the "loading windows.." screen (though, this keyboard has a "power" light, and it did stay on). Thinking it was maybe the disk, I borrowed a friend's windows xp cd, figuring since they are both xp professional SP2, the cdkey would work all the same, only.. same problem.

Someone suggested my computer might confusing my keyboard with something else, i've unplugged everything but my monitor, keyboard, and power cord.. the problem persists

Also thinking that my it may have been because my entire HDD was partitioned, I unpartitioned the 1024 mb I had partitioned for swap.. nothing changed.. Also, i'm not trying to preserve linux/dual boot, if need be, once I get past this keyboard problem, i'll delete the entire linux partition.

Oh, and since then, the installation has frozen a multiple parts.. once at the "press f6 to install third-party raid drivers" one at "common host drivers" and a few times at "setup is starting windows.. and I know it isn't the fact that my BIOS is outdated, because prior to me accidentally nuking it, windows was on the computer and working fine.


Any suggestions?

(Err.. probably should have said this earlier, i'm on a intel pentium 4, 2.80 ghz, with 1024 mb of ram.)

 

pure guess = the dell installer is checking bios to 'see' that it IS a dell it's running on.

although my experience w/ that type of issue usually turns up an error akin to 'i can't install on this box'

end result = the copy is not legit

 

Well, if that were the case, then my friends copy (legitimately bought, like i said in the post, figured since I had a legit cd key, it would work anyhow, as itwas the same version (pro sp2)) would work would it not?

and I know it is possible for windows to be installed on this box, as I had it for the 6 months before I got the error and had my hdd formatted by partition magic (though, it just reverted to "no c:/ drive detected" and I had to use fdisk to wipe and create a c drive.. can't find the boot disk I used that time, or i'd do the same with my linux partition and try it with a blank hdd)

 

Because you have tried different keyboards and connections and it is freezing at different points in the install, I’d be more inclined to think it is not the keyboard but some other hardware problem - the hard drive itself or IDE cable, or the memory or graphics card.

I’ve had some experience of Partition Magic trashing hard drives and it can do some funny things, so first off I would complete wipe the drive with something like this. Then check that the bios is reporting the drive correctly on the POST screens and then check with either PM or fdisk from floppy, or diskpart from the XP CD, that the drive is reported as all free space and it is the size expected. You can even download the disk manufacture’s diagnostic utility and check the health of the drive with that. If the keyboard functions without a problem during all that then it will give you more confidence that it is not a keyboard problem.

I would then suggest removing and reseating the IDE cable, graphics card and even the memory. If still no joy then trial and error with changing those three things.

 

like i said ... pure guess ... anyhoo ... can u lay u'r hands on a full install cd of xp? any version? not the dell one.