Installing windows xp loops *puts gun in mouth*

[Digital Bliss]

Well i have tried everything i can think of the problem is when you go to install windows xp it starts out normally but when it gets to the part where it says 15 seconds to restart it loops back to the begining of the installation i have tried diffrerent hdds but the one i tried i think was dead also atempted taking the cd out but that results on a no os error im fed up with this this is my 4th day working on it if anyone has any i diea please share i just cant take it anymore. Also i did manage to get a os owrking on there but i did it the incorrect way by just hot swaping a hdd and booting it up this worked which means that the mobo pc is fine its somthing to do with that hard drive or so i thought then again when i think about it the hdd works fine i did a ntfs format on my other pc flawlessly and its still not doiny anything now im getting a ntdlr error or somthing to that extent honestly if this was my pc i would have given up by now but it isnt i dont know why i bother always atempt to help but then people have some really messed up problems thay you never hear about im open to all sudgestions except throwing it out the window. Thank you very much for anyone that can give me in sight to this problem

[Digital Bliss]

Oh btw i had a chat with a ibm tech and im going to post the chat log i appoligze in advance to the mods if this is too long


Digital_Bliss1> tell your friend thanks but when i did that it said that there was no os on the hdd which makes since
<Jessica_Velvet> he's still here
<Jessica_Velvet> holdddd on
<Digital_Bliss> oh ok
<Jessica_Velvet> he says its not installing right
<Jessica_Velvet> there is an error with the transfer of the os on to the hd
<Digital_Bliss> hmm
<Digital_Bliss> ill try another os cd perhaps agaain
<Digital_Bliss> could it be that the hdd isnt set to load before anything else
<Digital_Bliss> would having the hdd as the first boot device
<Jessica_Velvet> wait
<Digital_Bliss> k
<Jessica_Velvet> set ur boot opetions to this
<Jessica_Velvet> cd rom should be first
<Jessica_Velvet> then hard drive
<Jessica_Velvet> you cannot have hard drive first when installing an os
<Jessica_Velvet> evreything will boot of the cd for installation
<Digital_Bliss1> k thats how it was i set everything to default
<Jessica_Velvet> then remove cd when isntalltion is complete
<Jessica_Velvet> so you had it like that
<Jessica_Velvet> and it still is not working?
<Digital_Bliss1> yeah
<Jessica_Velvet> My name is David by the way
<Digital_Bliss> oh hi
<Digital_Bliss> lol
<Digital_Bliss> thanks i really apricate the help im just running out of ideas
<Jessica_Velvet> whats the last point you goto on the screen before the problem arose
<Digital_Bliss> well i found someone with the exact same problem if u want here the link mabey you can think of somthing
<Digital_Bliss> you know when it says 15 seconds till restart thats when it loops after it restarts
<Jessica_Velvet> sure
<Digital_Bliss> http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=786449
<Jessica_Velvet> yes
<Digital_Bliss> no one had any good answers for him and i tried there solutions
<Jessica_Velvet> do it again
<Jessica_Velvet> when it says rebooting
<Jessica_Velvet> let it do it
<Jessica_Velvet> enter set up
<Digital_Bliss> i do then it goes back to the begining of the whole setup
<Jessica_Velvet> then change it to hd first the cd rom second
<Digital_Bliss> and keeps looping if i let it
<Jessica_Velvet> but you must to remove the cd
<Jessica_Velvet> it keeps looping b/c it reading the cd
<Digital_Bliss> i removed the cd and it says no os
<Digital_Bliss> when it restarts after the 15 seconds
<Jessica_Velvet> and thats when its booting of the hard drive first not the cd right?
<Digital_Bliss> yep
<Jessica_Velvet> how many jumpers in the hd
<Digital_Bliss> just one it is set as master if i take it off as single it says there is a ntldr error or somthing like that
<Jessica_Velvet> try with no jumpers at all
<Digital_Bliss> could it be the hdd i dont think it is cause i had it on this pc working just fine
<Jessica_Velvet> id say its something with the bios you proably have to reset it under command prompt
<Jessica_Velvet> but you have to contact compaq since the commands are diffrent with ibm machines
<Digital_Bliss> oh boy lol
<Jessica_Velvet> or the hard drive
<Jessica_Velvet> the pc seems to be running fine
<Digital_Bliss> u think i could update the bios
<Jessica_Velvet> possibly but that might cause more problems
<Digital_Bliss> but funny thing is the girl had xp on this pc before
<Digital_Bliss> and she said it worked fine until she moved it into another room but i jus found this out today
<Jessica_Velvet> under these circumstances we offer you a string of commands to punch in under the bios which does the trick and sets the bios up as a new machine , eliminating small erros
<Digital_Bliss> hmm so i just have to find those commands
<Jessica_Velvet> its a list of commands that are specific to your machine
<Jessica_Velvet> that resets the whole bios for you
<Digital_Bliss> thats not like flashing it is it
<Digital_Bliss> so when im looking for it i should searh for somthing along the lines of compaq 5000 bios reset
<Digital_Bliss> command
<Jessica_Velvet> before i do that, id just try another HD for the hell of it, just to see if it works, sometimes hard drives are weird like that
<Digital_Bliss> im gonna but its a 5400 yuk lol
<Jessica_Velvet> its not like flashing, essentially it resents the bios to proper order and gets all the errors out of it
<Digital_Bliss> im gonn format it through this pc and perhaps i can piggy back the other 40 and call it good but im trying to avoid that
<Digital_Bliss> wouldnt setting it to defult do that also
<Jessica_Velvet> sometimes
<Jessica_Velvet> but sometimes there are errors within the bios itself which would not fix it
<Digital_Bliss> cause i did that to no avale
<Digital_Bliss> i see
<Jessica_Velvet> only resetting the enitre thing would fix it
<Jessica_Velvet> now thats one way out
<Jessica_Velvet> the easy thing would be trying another hard drive
<Jessica_Velvet> if those 2 things do not work
<Jessica_Velvet> your mother board needs to go
<Jessica_Velvet> but thats the extreme
<Digital_Bliss> hmm
<Digital_Bliss> she doesent have much money damn but mabey i could do somthing
<Digital_Bliss> perhaps but thats a little harsh
<Digital_Bliss> hmm
<Jessica_Velvet> yea, hopefully thats not the problem
<Digital_Bliss> lets say i take a hdd outa another pc with an os it will work but not correctly right
<Jessica_Velvet> even the smallest of static shock can ruin a whole system and cause it to go funny, ive seen it a million times
<Jessica_Velvet> that might be a cause also
<Digital_Bliss>hmm but i know thats not the case everything is working fine its just the winxp installation like i said before ill try another hdd
<Jessica_Velvet> my opinion would be to first try chaning hd's, if that doesnt work, reset bios, if that doesnt work, motherboard but that is an extreme, try to contact compaq and see what the say, but im assumeing its out of warranty so forget that they charge an arm and a leg
<Digital_Bliss> yea would be pricey
<Jessica_Velvet> it would but is it under warranty?
<Digital_Bliss> compaq 5000...... nope like 3yrs old
<Jessica_Velvet> maybe you can find parts on ebay as in motherboard if you need it
<Digital_Bliss> yea and if so ill jus buy them for her besides they arnt that much then again im trying to avoid things that are going to take more time
<Jessica_Velvet> if you insist but 500 bucks can get you a new hp pc
<Digital_Bliss> she doesent have that kinda money
<Jessica_Velvet> Ahh
<Digital_Bliss> yea so im tryin to save her cash
<Jessica_Velvet> I have a suspicion that static shock has done her in
<Digital_Bliss> but if that was the case would pci devices be showing up
<Jessica_Velvet> they still would in some cases
<Digital_Bliss> oh
<Jessica_Velvet> easy test would be sticking a usb thing in there see if it detects it
<Digital_Bliss> usb what
<Digital_Bliss> hmm
<Digital_Bliss> i have fire wire crap
<Jessica_Velvet> well
<Jessica_Velvet> forget that idea then lol
<Digital_Bliss> oh well ill figgure somthing out
<Jessica_Velvet> hopefully the hard drive will work though
<Jessica_Velvet> b/c smallest of shocks disrupts the needels and motor
<Digital_Bliss> yea im gonna try that in a few mins
<Jessica_Velvet> and in each disk there is a pit, if one pit goes bad, it will install but wont work
<Digital_Bliss> well thanks again for all your help im gonna go and try that other hdd
<Jessica_Velvet> hopefully it works
<Digital_Bliss> *crosses fingers*
<Jessica_Velvet> if it does not stick the old one back in there and delete all partitions and install fresh copy of win xp if you dident already
<Digital_Bliss> thats what ive been trying to do
<Digital_Bliss> formated it and the partitons several times
<Jessica_Velvet> you should delete all partitions this time
<Digital_Bliss> k
<Jessica_Velvet> and install fresh copy of win xp
<Jessica_Velvet> delete evreything
<Digital_Bliss> thats if the hdd works
<Jessica_Velvet> yea
<Digital_Bliss> lol
<Digital_Bliss> the fun begins
<Jessica_Velvet> long process
<Digital_Bliss> ohhh yea

[notbob]

Well i have tried everything i can think of the problem is when you go to install windows xp it starts out normally but when it gets to the part where it says 15 seconds to restart it loops back to the begining of the installation i have tried diffrerent hdds but the one i tried i think was dead also atempted taking the cd out but that results on a no os error im fed up with this this is my 4th day working on it if anyone has any i diea please share i just cant take it anymore. Also i did manage to get a os owrking on there but i did it the incorrect way by just hot swaping a hdd and booting it up this worked which means that the mobo pc is fine its somthing to do with that hard drive or so i thought then again when i think about it the hdd works fine i did a ntfs format on my other pc flawlessly and its still not doiny anything now im getting a ntdlr error or somthing to that extent honestly if this was my pc i would have given up by now but it isnt i dont know why i bother always atempt to help but then people have some really messed up problems thay you never hear about im open to all sudgestions except throwing it out the window. Thank you very much for anyone that can give me in sight to this problem


when it gets to the "boot from cd, press any key" on reboot, do you? if so, don't

once you get to the restart, files are loaded onto the hard drive, do you want to boot from that, not the cd

if the hard drive was really bad, it would never even get to that point, since it would be unable to load files to a hard drive, give an error message to that effect, and restart

so which is it? the files load onto the HDD then it restarts, or you get a bad HDD message and it restarts?

i had an issue with a dvd drive that will not get any farther than the point you describe--do you have any extra cd drives to use instead? then, once xp is installed, put the original one back in?

[Arch Stanton]

is it an older motherboard and a newer, larger sized HDD?

i've run into that issue frequently enough, do you get an error like "error loading operating system", or "operating system not found"? if so you may need to flash bios.

or does it just automatically try to boot from cd without giving the hdd a try. if so sounds like a bios or jumper related issue.