Windows XP Freezing

[Tomorrow_Rains]

Well, I've come to a problem which i cant figure out the problem,

I installed windows Xp on a computer i have, and in order to get to the windows Xp blue screen to install the NTFS Version, i have to unplug the Harddrive from the computer and then plug it in again and turn on the computer, after the whole installation and setting up windows with Some minor programs and an antivirus, i shut off the computer, and when i try turning it on again in the morning The windows XP loading screen comes on and Before it even says "welcome" The black screen comes on..and it freezes there.
Then i tried to unplug the hard drive again and turn on the computer After plugging it in, and I cant even Run the Windows XP cd Anymore. It doesnt let me do anything but Go into system setup. Oh and another thing. The harddrive Sometimes the computer reads it. Sometimes it doesnt.

Could it be that the powersupply cables are all f'ed up? or Could it be that my hard drive is gone completely wacko.
The computer is 7 years old.

And i brought it back to life at the beggining of last year, and it went through a memory upgrade.

Im out of ideas for what to do to it, Ive fdisk'ed it so many times.

Can someone help? please.

 

[Tmagic650]

Can we have you hardware specs please? What are you installing XP on? CPU, Memory and hard drive?

 

[DonNagual]

High chance your HDD is failing on you. What make is your HDD? Go to the maker's website, and download their diagnostic utility if they have one. If not, go to www.maxtor.com and download their HDD diagnostic utility (powermax). I believe it is designed to work with all hard drives.

Run it on your hard drive (it runs from dos) and let us know how it goes.

 

[Tomorrow_Rains]

Well...

I've come to a new problem that the computer doesnt even Recognize the hard drive now. and i cant run dos or anything because my computer doesnt have an operating system.

Does this mean i should get a new hard drive?

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes it does, but you will also need to be able to boot from your CD ROM to load your operating system on to the new drive

 

[Bjinnz]

Perhaps the system setup has reset to default mode (ie lithium battery failure), to check this one merely needs to set the clock within setup, then power down the machine and restart after a small amount of time and check that the time is still correct.

You may also need to reconfigure the bios for the harddrive, some of the older bios required actual hard drive information entered manually (ie amount of cylinders, sectors etc..) If your lucky there is an Autoselect option.
Possible scenario is a conflict between the harddrive and Cd-rom, if your motherboard has two IDE slots with cables for the HDD and CD-Rom then use one for the HDD and the other for the CD-Rom, if only using the one slot for both then make sure the CD-Rom is set to slave and the HDD set to master and the cable is the correct way round.

It is also possible that being an older computer, some of the hardware within may not be compatable with XP, does the system specs of the machine meet the minimum requirements of XP?

Or the HDD has actually failed. :dead:

 

[Tomorrow_Rains]

This Computer is an HP 8674D. It's really old actually, and I just bought an 80gb HDD for it two days ago and ever since I've been trying to install windows 98 to recover it and then upgrade it to windows professional XP. It's constantly freezing when I try to reboot it, meaning when I press to reboot it, the screen goes black and it doesn't load AT ALL (I've waited 30 minutes) Could it be that the Motherboard has completely Failed? I've Fdisked The HDD three times already, and nothing. When it comes up to loading windows XP it freezes at the Menu Where it says "Loading Windows Xp Installation" At the blue screen. When im done formatting in order to Put windows 98 It asks me To remove disk and press Enter to reboot, I remove disc, And press enter And It Freezes Completely. The yellow busy light stays on and the computer does not load, What could be wrong?

 

[danieldude]

hey man

as far as i know, trying to work xp on your machine,dosent leave much power to anything else.....

 

[Tmagic650]

Yes,
Stick with Windows 98SE and save your pennnies for a newer system

 

[Tomorrow_Rains]

Yeah but i cant even load Windows 98 At All, It just stays on the Windows 98 Screen Loading and Loading and Loading. And it never Finishes To load. EVER (ive left it for 24 Hours)

(Added Note) Also! When its Loading windows 98. And i try to ctrl alt Dlt it, A blue screen comes up with a huge error, And then the computers freezes.

Oh ive also gotten memory upgrades, If that helps?

 

[Tmagic650]

Strip the computer down. Use 1 stick of memory, maybe even use and old stick of memory and a simple video card like a PCI and try the install again. Once Win98 is installed you can reinstall your upgrades

 

[Tomorrow_Rains]

Btw, i'm really sorry for bothering you all so much, i really appreciate the help thank you very much for helping me, I'm going home soon to try this out.

 

[Tmagic650]

I have installed XP on some weak machines that were 5 or 6 years old that woked fine. The key is to have at least a 500MHz processor and 30GB hard drive. 10GB will work, but you won't have much room for other things. Memory has to be at least 256MB. Intel boards do better with XP than old AMD boards. I think you may have a compatibility issue between your new memory and your motherboard. 7 year old systems most likely ran proprietary memory that can still be found, but it is expensive

 

[Tomorrow_Rains]

well i havent changed any memory sticks from what it had back then only thing ive changed was the Hard drive.
And im having problems loading up everything, I tried everything and still..Nothing at all.