TechSpot - PC Technology News and Analysis

Recently a HD of my mothers died, it contained vital info to her. So naturally, I booted into a Live CD and rescued the ****. So we got the data on my HD, we ran a ChkDsk and found several bad sectors. We cleared the harddrive; meaning we formatted it with a NTFS filesystem. Alright, so we stick in our Windows XP Professional SP2 disc. We load up, and it begins formatting. Then it starts copying setup files.

So all goes well, however as soon as it hits installing Windows XP.. uh-oh. It hangs at:
"Setup will complete in approximately 39 minutes...". So we waited like 10-15 minutes to see if it'd change, nope. So well on hope was lost, it did.

"Setup will complete in approximately 37 minutes..."; "Installing Devices"... the gauge moving very slow like its crawling. The gauge looks like its going to take an hour or so to fill. Whats going on, and is the HD dead? We can't just go out and buy a replacement HD as they don't make this kind anymore, and buying an entire new tower is pricey.. ideas?

A HD with bad sectors isn't a good sign. I'd just replace the drive. There is nothing special about that drive that makes it irreplacable. EIDE hds have been in use since the early 90s, any one you buy will work unless the comp is so old the BIOS can't handle a large drive.

I've also seen faulty Ram, cause this "39 minutes" issue (always seems to be that one)
Remove your Ram, remove any/all dust, re-insert your Ram

Another option is the little jumper on the end of the HardDrive (where the Data and power plug in to it) Confirm that the jumper is on CS (being Cable Select)

It's an ATA drive, so it's not the easiest to replace. We're pulling the ram how kimsland, is there a way specifically to do this?

Without your System Specs it is very difficult to let you know.

But on a PC, you just push down on the locking clips on the side of the Ram, which will allow the Ram to be removed

For more help please put your System Specs information in your Profile

Aha! We reseated the ram and all. No luck. So we called up Dell; they weren't much use. They told us to try Control + F11 to System Dell Restore it. No luck, it no longer did that. Surfing the net showed me that I had to restore the first part of the MBR back to boot the Dell Restore partition. I burned the DOS app onto a CD at once and launched it. Redid the MBR, rebooted. Then quickly did this combination, and bam. System restore.

We're currently performince it, will update status.

STATUS: Working

Using the Dell™ MediaDirect Repair Utility to Fix a Corrupt Master Boot Record (MBR) in Microsoft® Windows® XP

http://support.dell.com/support/topi...doclang=en&cs=

We used an unoffical MBR disc. It worked fine. The restore just finished, Windows.. Please wait... I'm waiting.

EDIT: Black screen, flashing _

Christmas is coming - buy Mom some RWRW cd's NOW as an early gift and show her how to drag and drop.

Run Memtest on your Ram
Or a Drive Diagnostics on your HardDrive
Or confirm the jumper set to CS (as mentioned earlier)

Memtest, OK.
Drive Diagnostics done with Dell, turns out OK.
I'm certain it's the HD though.. dell restore worked OK. But everything is loading really slow...
and the Windows XP loading screen fades in slowly, and the loading bar moves slow.

Or, if she has more thsan one stick of ram, pull all but one and alternate them to find if one stick is bad.

The RAM is fine, we tested both. The screen loads really slow and the progress bar moves slow. The windows XP loading starts to load... the screen goes black for a second, and then it reboots back to the BIOS.

Is the same happening in Safe Mode? (repeatedly press F8 key on Windows startup to get to Safe Mode)

In Safe Mode you can also check event viewer (Control Panel->Administrative Tools)

Safe mode refuses to boot, we isas.exe:
Something about a password not being the value set...

Repair Windows:

Microsoft's Windows XP Professional Repair Install step by step
http://www.windowsxpprofessional.win...pair/part3.htm

Microsoft's Windows XP Home Repair Install step by step
http://www.windowsxphome.windowsrein...pair/part3.htm

Repair a fresh install...?

Yes

Actually I think it's the Gina value not set correctly in the registry key explorer.exe

Is this with the original Windows Setup CD?

No, it was a Dell System Restore...
Also my mother isn't sure we've set the HD up right, could we have it ill setup?

One HardDrive
One CD/DVD Drive
Both seperate (ie not the same ATA Data cable)

Both set to CS (you haven't actually said you confirmed this yet)

Any issues, start checking Faulty Hardware (like the actual drives, and data cables)