Computer Freezeing on XP install
March 8, 2010 3:11 PM   Subscribe

Computer freezing on reformat start up.

In trying to reformat a computer to a new copy of windows XP, I get to the phase where its installing devices, it freezes at 35 minutes to go, and won't do anything. The computer got a virus from some random website. Which is the reason for having to reformat. It formats the drive, copies over the files, but when installing them freezes on devices, everything I've tried hasn't worked, and I'm stumped.

BTW this isn't Acacia, it's a friend trying to help.
posted by Acacia to Technology (9 answers total)
 
Bad CD or optical drive?
posted by yoyoceramic at 3:38 PM on March 8, 2010


Response by poster: I dont think so, 'cause then it wouldn't get past the initial copying of files to the hard drive.
posted by Acacia at 3:39 PM on March 8, 2010


Did you blow out the partition and start from scratch, or just format the drive?

Does it always stop at the same place during the install?

Were there any hardware issues occurring before the reformat? Any new hardware added to the system?
posted by m0nm0n at 3:44 PM on March 8, 2010


If the disc copies over corrupted files, the copying will take place fine, but the corrupted archives may not unpack properly and you would see the installation hang. Try installing from different media.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:20 PM on March 8, 2010


(Especially if it hangs at the same spot — this would imply the archive being processed at that point is corrupt in some way.)
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 4:21 PM on March 8, 2010


Best answer: It could be a bad component. The setup logs should shed some light; this article shows how drop to a command prompt from Setup and which logs to inspect. If you don't want to be bothered hunting through logs, try removing all unnecessary hardware before retrying the install.
posted by Loser at 5:00 PM on March 8, 2010


Bios upgrade/re-install.

A live Ubuntu disk should get it up and running, I have a netbook where the SSD drive failed, but runs fine for light usage off the external DVD drive.

Try playing with the RAM, removing a stick if there's more than one.

If you've got a spare drive, or can get one, swap it in.

So basically, bios, hard drive, RAM. Drivers can be dealt with separately.

If none of that works, start looking at the power supply, sourceing a new motherboard or CPU.

Maybe easier just to get a working used computer though.
posted by hungrysquirrels at 5:43 PM on March 8, 2010


Loser's probably got it. Unplug any non-essential peripherals from the computer and try again. It's probably just choking trying to find a third party driver that's not on the XP install disc.
posted by JaredSeth at 7:18 PM on March 8, 2010


If you have some strange device (disk drive or video card especially) and Windows doesn't have a built-in driver, then it may be dying when it installs whatever it thinks it needs to for that device. Turn off everything you can, maybe swap out the video card.
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:49 PM on March 8, 2010


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