at a repair install to fix a bootup problem, during the Installing Devices... part of installation on windows xp home setup comes to a point where the little working animation in the corner continues but nothing happens. i've left setup on overnight and it was at the same point in the morning.
i've tried 1) restarting setup (several times), including running a new one from the boot disc 2) disabled USB, network, comm, and sound from BIOS before setup.... don't know what else to do (other than reformatting, which i really don't want to do). any help anyone?

Ive seen some cases where Windows Setup would hang if more than 256MB memory was installed - but thats a bit far fetched.

What you could try is moving all the files in C:\Windows\INF to a temp folder such as C:\tempinf, then run setup again.

ps. you dont need to format the drive, simply delete C:\Windows and C:\ProgramFiles so windows start fresh.

i do have more than 256MB ram on that machine, is there anyway around this problem?

Yes, by turning of the L2 CPU Cache in the BIOS. But I doubt this would be applicable to your PC since it was an AGP shared memory issue with a certain notebook.

Can you boot Windows in Safe mode ok?
If so, then go to Device Manager and remove and suspect devices such as printers, scanners, and non-microsoft mouse drivers (Logitech drivers are known to cause strange issues).

when i boot it goes directly into the reinstall setup, i've been able to get most of the stuff onto another computer using command prompt (which i can get to by using shift+f10) and a rather tedious set of flash memory stick transfers, i haven't tried the windows/inf/ thing just yet, there still some more stuff i want to get to another computer, in other words, i can't get to windows using safe mode. the reinstall setup hangs at 35 minutes remaining (during "installing devices").... everytime

same thing is happening to me. did you ever get it to work?

if I happen to get it to work before you reply I'll post what I did, but at this point I'm stuck.

unfortunately i had to reinstall a fresh copy of windows... i did get all the stuff i wanted from my computer (my music, etc). i used flash memory to get it to another computer. if you have any stuff you really want to save i suggest either getting flash memory or a USB hard drive and copying on there. you can access the command prompt by hit shift+f10 during the install. you can access your whole file tree and copy stuff to the usb drive (f:\ or e:\), although i found that you need to wait until the install hangs in order to access usb devices (i guess those are some of the devices it's installing)

This has happened to me recently. I just installed a new CD-RW, and was going to upgrade to Windows XP Pro w/ SP2...

at first i was getting a blue screen during the copying installation files, then it started and was hanging during installing devices..

i disconnected my new CD-RW and it moved right past this and hung on Configuring Network with 35 minutes remaining..

i disconnected my NIC and modem and everything's working just fine now.

(a bit late, but i searched and couldn't find any help with this, hopefully this will help someone.)

win xp install hangs on thinkpad A21P installing devices

I put a new hard drive in my Thinkpad A21P and installed WinXP. No problem. Then decided to put Linux Fedora 4 on it. Fine but it wouldn't install the NIC properly. When I did the Linux install I put the bootloader on the MBR (I think). I then decided to reinstall XP. Bummer. I ended up Fdisking the drive to kill all partitions, but the XP install hung at 35 minutes - installing devices.

After many many many retries I:
1. Booted XP CD to recovery console.
2. Did FixMBR and Fixboot C:
3. Disconnecte my network cable
4. Went into BIOS setup, pressed F9 (restore defaults - just in case)

and it worked.

I have not idea what was wrong...I just kept plugging until it worked.

bob

Having the same problems with XP Pro on an older Compaq Presario 2700T. Tried restoring the BIOS defaults and rebooting, but still have the hang on 35 minutes. Gonna try the reboot again, and then search for more options.

/BB

Re: Re: Windows XP Home Repair Install Hangs at 35 Minutes Remaining

Per an article on Computing.Net (http://www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/21602.html), I tried rebooting after removing the Combo CD/DVD-ROM and Floppy drives to no avail.... The search for a valid 'Repair' continues....

/BB

Had the same problem, then I remembered that I recently had a PCI video card installed for a second monitor (my first one is AGP). I removed the PCI card and voila, the install got past the 35 min. hang!

another possible solution

I was having the same problems, tried disabling a bunch of things, no help, and then tried unplugging a second hard drive that had an XP install on it, and that seemed to resolve the issue. Maybe the repair install looks at both %systemfolder%\inf\ folders, and gets confused? It's impossible to say, as the XP install process has no error reporting that I'm aware of. Hope this helps folks.

I have WinXP PRO on a P4-3.0Ghz with 256MB-RAM. I tried unplugging extra Ram and my WD harddrive, but I still get WinXP stuck at the 35min range at the "installing devices" phase. The OS won't run in Safe Mode.
Is there at least a way to salvage some files before I decide to through all away?

you can take it and use it as a slave on another PC or use a live OS like Knoppix or Ubuntu Live, then copy it over to some cd/dvds or something..

Thanks-it worked

Removing the extra memory and running with only 256MB worked. It got me past when the installation hunged up at 34 minutes remaining where it was installing devices. Thank you!

Can't belive the solution was so simple

I was so frustrated with it hanging at 34 minutes no matter what I did that I was about to just reformat my drive and do a fresh install, even though that would mean losing tons of files (I tried transferring as much of the 200 GBs of files I had on the drive to other HDs, but ran out of space) and hours upon hours of 3rd party software reinstallations.

But I decided to give it one more shot, this time unplugging all the other hard drives.
But it did nothing for the installation hang up (though it did cause the monitor cycle through power save mode repeatedly with the screen going black then resuming the installation screen display).

But the instant I unplugged the ethernet cable, the installation progress bar moved for the first time and went down to 31 minutes, and then finally completed the repair install.

Thanks for the help, good people!

Funny because i was just about to post a big "Thank you" after just discovering that unplugging the ethernet cable got me past 39 minutes during my install. only problem is that the install then hung again at 2 minutes.

WTF???

Can anyone explain why this is happening? how is the NIC or ethernet cable preventing a windows XP repair installation? Now that I've unplugged, I'm stuck again.

Thanks,
treee

Laptop - XP home repair hanging on 34 mins

Hi,
I had the same problem with the installation hanging at 34 mins on a dell inspiron 1300 laptop.
I disabled the lan, modem and wireless card from within the bios and hey presto. It's not completed the full setup yet but it's got way past the 34mins mark so here's hoping.

Help

I'm having the same problem. XP installation hangs after 34 mins. I have a new VAIO laptop that cam pre installed with VISTA. Could somebody give me a step by step guide on how to fix this?