Hi All,
I had posted some problems with a mainboard that I was putting together for me and now have some more problems that we (me and my son) have come across trying to assemble his computer. Mines working nicely BTW.

Azza 133 chipset mainboard
200/266mhzFSB
socket A
128megs ram (for now)
onboard sound and video
AMD Duron 850mhz processor
20gig HD

We f-disked it to one large partition then formatted the drive. We proceeded to install Windows 98se and it went like this:

Preparing to run win98 setup - successful
collecting info about your computer - successful
Copying win98 files to your computer - successful
Restarting your computer to finish installing programs - when it reboots it goes RIGHT back to asking for a start-up disk and everything is back to where we were when we had just got done formatting. I've tried making new boot disks more than once but no success. We also tried re-formatting to wipe any info that might be interfering with an install over an install and still no luch suck.

Anyone ever run into this sort of problem before? It seems the files are getting loaded but it just can't finalize the transaction for lack of better terms. Just that last hurdle and we can finish the race (but in last place).

[This message has been edited by Fruss Tray Ted (edited 04-25-2002).]

Hello Frustrated

Believe it or not but things were going just as Microsoft planned it.

I think your PC was in the "Hardware Detection Phase" and had encountered a problem with a piece of hardware.
Heres a qoute from the "Windows 95 Resource Kit" Help File :

" To continue if Windows 95 Setup stops during hardware detection
1.Press F3 or click the Cancel button to quit Setup.
If the computer does not respond to the Cancel button, restart the computer by turning it off and then back on again.
2.Run Setup again.
Setup prompts you to use Safe Recovery to recover the failed installation.
3.Click Use Safe Recovery, and then click the Next button.
4.Repeat your installation choices.
Hardware detection runs again, but Setup skips the portion that caused the initial failure.
5.If the computer stops again during the hardware detection process, repeat this procedure until the hardware detection portion of Setup completes successfully."

I assume Windows 98 is similar.

I would advise a complete zero fill wipe of the drive, sometimes formatting doesn't remvoe all the information-it also doesn't remove any previous master boot record.

After you've done a complete wipe and a new install of partition(s) and formatted again for setup, try some of these switches-they can help you trouble shoot the exact problem you're getting.

setup /p a this tells window's to use a safer mode of device detection-may not work on all your devices hopwever.

You can also look for the detcrash.log file after a failed install-this'll tell you where windows got hung up at.

Here is a link to MS's default setup switches, browse thru them and you may find a couple that are useful.

Setup switches (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q186111)



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iisbob

Computer-Show me the Enterprise; no bloody A, no bloody B, and no bloody C-just the original...Mr Scott { from a STNG episode }

Sylvander,
The method you describe is quite different than 98's. ASAMOF I just found some 95 books well let's say my son brought me on Windows 95 and I plan on reading through them to know how to somewhat service them. I may even use my older pc to install it just to know how to and troubleshoot as some of my family are still using it and when I had it I really had NO CLUE to the workinKs of it. Miraculously I have come out of the fog and am starting to understand a little which is why I purchased my pc in components only. (to learn) Thanks for the try though.

iisbob,
Thanks for the link. I'm sure I will use it some day. I beat you to the punch on the fix though. This morning when I saw ther were no responses here, I tried, for the second time, the clear bios jumper then reset the bios the way I want it and then f-disked and formatted over again. I bet you can't guess what happened after that! Yup! Just like there was never a problem in the first place. Smooth as silk. Just don't tell my boy that, I want him to be surprized when he gets home from school. That's as far as I went because he's taking pc classes and the experience is as valuable to him as it is to me so he gets to do the rest with me as a vulture over his shoulder waiting for carrion LOL.

Thanks again to both of you for tryin'.
PC's are why I'm,
Fruss Tray Ted

BTW - Ranish Partition Manager (http://www.ranish.com/part/) is a great tool that has an option to fill the drive with zeros. And a new beta was just released. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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Some mistakes are too much fun to make only once.