[Pikachu]

Hello,
I am having difficulties getting my PC too boot. The machine is a Fujitsu/Siemens Scaleo P3, 2 GHz, 512 MB RAM, with a new, formatted 160 GB HD.

I have made a bootable WinXP CD according to this TACKtech forum post: www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=346, the latest of umpteen tips I have tried over the past three days - no go.

What happens is this: starting up with above CD in the drive, I get "Press any key to boot from CD..." I press the Anykey and the PC proceeds to read the CD ("Setup is inspecting your hardware... " and so forth) and all seems well.

But when it gets to "Setup is starting Windows" it stops there. Incredibly, if I leave the PC on, after some 2 - 3 hours (!) I get the XP welcome screen, then no more.

The mouse moves the cursor across the screen but that's it. No keyboard response.

Does anybody have a clue as to why this might be? Me, I'm a wits end :_|

Thank you!

[mphenterprises]

Pikachu said:

Hello,

>

Quote

What happens is this: starting up with above CD in the drive, I get "Press any key to boot from CD..." I press the Anykey and the PC proceeds to read the CD ("Setup is inspecting your hardware... " and so forth) and all seems well.

Okay, the first question I have for you is where is the "AnyKey"? LOL




Anyway, I have some serious questions for you:

- From where did you create the Windows XP CD? By this I mean where was you original Windows XP CD?

- What is the model number of your computer?

- What prompted this reinstallation in the first place?

[Pikachu]

1 From where did you create the Windows XP CD? By this I mean where was you original Windows XP CD?

It came with the PC, so It's an OEM.

2 What is the model number of your computer?

Scaleo 800S

3 What prompted this reinstallation in the first place?

I'd rather not say...but seriously, as I remember it things went awry in connection with my dowloading and
installing SP2, so it's a while ago. Perhaps you would like to know why I waited so long before trying to fix things?

I got so disgusted with the so-called support department (it's a company PC) that I bought a new PC (HP Pavillion) which, by the by, runs like a dream.

'Sall

[rgreen4]

Pikachu - If it is a company machine, and unless you are required to use it, I would just turn it into the company support group and let them fix it. It seems you have another functional machine, and apparently that one belongs to you.
However, if you are determined to fix it, a couple of points. If you attempt to boot without the CD, list exactly what the computer does. Any beeps or messages on the screen.

[Pikachu]

Hi, I was unclear there. I leased the PC from my then employer. The trouble started a couple of days (literally) after the warranty expired, wouldn't you know it.
Yes I'm determined to fix it, seeing as how I've spent some $1.900 on something that is, as of this moment, little more than a very robust doorstop. Oh, you betcha I'm determined.

I get no beeps, but it says something like: "Operating system not found press ctrlaltdel yada yada" or else: "NTLOADER not found press...".

And so on and so forth ad nauseam.

Woe is me...

[SpiritWind]

:D Hi :


It appears you may have an Operating System related problem !? Since you said "Things went awry in

connection with my downloading and installing SP2", it may be helpful to know what SPECIFIC Operating

System was on the computer PRIOR to the "downloading" ? Was SP2 successfully installed ? Did you

consult a "Guide" such as the one at

www.askdavetaylor.com/how[ucan[/u]isafelyupgradetowindowsxpservicepack2.html]

PRIOR to the downloading ? Did you do #5 in this "Guide" ?

[Pikachu]

Naaah...that's no good. 'See - for one thing the PC doesn't have an operating system right now, like I said the HDD is formatted and thus empty. Where would the OS come from, pray tell? I am trying to install WinXP from a CD. Also, I have done the exact same thing with the HP, no problem.

I'll check out the guide just the same. Thanks!

[rgreen4]

Ok, I have tried and failed to find any information on your laptop on the Fujitsu/Siemens website.

1. How old is this machine?

2. What OS was originally on the machine when it left the factory?

3. You said you did the same thing on the HP, did you use the same disc?

4. You said you made a bootable disc, can you explain what you meant by that?

5. I am trying to figure out why your machine will not boot off of a Windows XP install disc. Does the disc have a hologram image label or a plain black and white label with the computer company logo?

6. When you attempted to install XP, did you ever get a blue screen where it was loading the files?

[Pikachu]

Hello rgreen, it's not a laptop but a desktop (tower really) did I say it was? I don't think so. No wonder you couldn't find info. Now, let's see...

1. I received it as far back as September 9, 2003 (perhaps it's worn out?) ;-)

2. WinXP home edition

3. No, that would only have worked with the Scaleo - I borrowed a (bought and paid-for) disc from my then girlfriend, naughty me

4. Yes I can, and here I am quoting myself from the original post:

"I have made a bootable WinXP CD according to this TACKtech forum post: www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=346"

5 . A tan-colored hologram w. the Microsoft logo

6. Yes. I'll tell you what, since my last post I just left the PC running unattended (in fact I went out to shop, then went to a restaurant) and when I came back home, lo and behold, the installation program had progressed so far in the intervening two hours as to start asking the familiar questions you get when installing. My hope was renewed and I clicked the appropriate buttons.

But the process was so painfully slow, I finally had to go to bed (this was midnight my time, GMT1) and when I woke up the PC had gone into screensaver mode. Upon waking it+ up, there is the default summer landscape and an admonition to install anti-virus software, notwithstanding that I had previously checked "Do not connect to the Internet at this time". And there things stand.

The problem seems now to be not that the machine doesn't accept the OS or doesn't, eventually, boot but that it takes a day and a half, and I just don't have the patience for that.

It's like the processor is 95% brain-dead - it eventually gets where it's going, but...

Well, there it is. Do you have any suggestions for me rgreen? By the way - I would like to to express my gratitude to you and to everybody else for taking time to help with this, and to PC-World for the forum. It sure feels good to belong to a community like this!

[mphenterprises]

Pikachu said:

>By the way - I would like to to express my gratitude to you and to everybody else for taking time to help with this, and to PC-World for the forum. It sure >feels good to belong to a community like this!

Quote

I am sure I speak for RGreen when I say It is our pleasure. :-) We all do this for the love of helping people and of learning new things ourselves.




Now, this may be a stretch but I am going to ask anyway:

- How much memory does this computer have?

- What is the Power Supply rating? (You can find the Power Supply rating on the inside of the computer on a sticker on the side of the Power Supply.)




The reason I ask is that at least twice the installation process has tried to complete but has sluggishly progressed forward. This could be as simply as a power consumption issue, hopefully.

[Pikachu]

No, friend, no stretch I of course treasure any and all help - it's a meager 256 MB (not 512 as erroneously stated in my original post) since I robbed the Scaleo of one SIMM in favor of the HP.

The rating? The text on the sticker is kind of involved and I don't know what are the pertinent figures, so I snapped a picture of it which I will (try and) attach to this reply:



Hope you can read it, else let me know. You say "at least twice the installation process has tried to complete but has sluggishly progressed forward".

Sluggishly? You master of understatement you...but that power supply has been there all along, back in the 'good old days' too, when God was in his heaven and all was well with the world...i.e. the Scaleo ran perfectly.

Now what?

[mphenterprises]

Okay, now I think we are getting somewhere. I believe the minimum memory requirements for Windows XP is 128MBs. So you are above that; however, just barely. Also, the Power Supply, although initially sufficient, may be unable to handle the power consumption of a reinstallation....or may be failing.




The first thing you should do is upgrade the memory, significantly. Since we could not find any specifications directly related to this computer, the next best thing is to check the specifications of the memory. According to crucial.com, the Scaleo 800S came in three versions:

- SD RAM

- DDR RAM

- RD RAM



You most likely have one of the first two. Each version of the Scaleo 800S had a maximum memory of 1.5GBs. So, here are a selection of memory chips for the SD RAM Memory Chips and DDR RAM Memory Chips.

Now, if increasing the memory to close to the maximum for your computer does not help the process, I would advise replacing the Power Supply. Now, ironically, the Power Supply is less expensive than the memory; however, installing the Power Supply is not as simply as popping in a memory chip. Here is a list of Power Supplies that are compatible with your computer.

I believe one or both of these options will help your situation. Please post once you have tried both.

[Pikachu]

Right, my man, I likes de sound a dat! I'll follow your suggestions to the best of my (financial) ability and will post ASAP. Again thank you and everybody who have been helpful!

I have gotten more (and more qualified) help from you guys in the past few days than I got from the so-called helpdesk of the company from which I leased the PC in the two years the lease ran.

This is not an exaggeration, though one might think so.

It's very tempting to boogie on down to one of the local PC dealers and get going immediately, but I know I can get a better deal on the Net, so it may be a few days before I get my hot little hands on the hardware, but I will let you know.

[mphenterprises]

Pikachu said:

I have gotten more (and more qualified) help from you guys in the past few days than I got from the so-called helpdesk of the company from which I leased the PC in the two years the lease ran.


This is not an exaggeration, though one might think so.

Believe me, this forum has an expert for just about everything. Collectively, there aren't too many issues we cannot resolve. Unfortunately, we cannot resolve everything, but we will do everything we can to help. :-)



Before you buy the memory, take out the existing memory chip and look at the specifications on the label. Somewhere on there, you should see either "SD RAM' or "DDR RAM." This will let you know which list from which to pick your memory upgrade.

If you have any other questions, please ask. :-)

[Pikachu]

mphenterprises said:

> If you have any other questions, please ask. :-)

Have I somehow given you the impression that I was shy to ask? If so, my mistake. ;-) I will, as per usual, follow the advice given. I cannot tell you how gratifying my experience with PC World and some of its readers has been.

You pointed out in an earlier post that it can be a learning experience for all involved which is quite true. Let me put it this way: if it's been half as gratifying for you, then it's been twice as gratifying for me.

You and I both, I am pretty sure, have met people who 'know everything' and would never stoop to taking advice from somebody else.

Well, to them I say "Good Luck, now be on your merry way". I have no patience whatever with such people and I don't think you have either.

Quoting The Arnold here: "I'll be baack".

[Pikachu]

...and here I am. No, that extra GB I went out and bought at he equivalent of $90 didn't do anything as far as solving the problem. It's still the same ol' same ol'.

I'm so sick of the whole thing, I'm going to take a one year hiatus from this sheeit and devote my time to something worthwhile. Like belly-button-lint knitting.

And I am not replacing the power supply as I think that would be barking up the wrong tree yet again. I mean, what's the logic in saying the power supply is the problem when

1. It's been in the PC all along, and when

2. that reasoning makes about as much sense as saying something like: "well, your main power line only supplies 75 VAC, not the required 120, so it takes a half a day for your lights to come on full strength".

D'ya get it? Huh? Huh?

At least it's a comfort to know I have unlimited funds for these wild-goose-chases (so long as I don't want to buy anything, that is).

It's beddie-bye time down South(Sweden) and lawd, ahm so tired.

[mphenterprises]

LOL I like this guy. LOL :D




Anyway, believe me, this is definitely not a wild goose chase. The fact that the Power Supply was fine before the reformat does not necessarily relate to the Power Supply working now. I have never gauged it but I am sure takes some resources to reinstall an Operating System. Think about this, the temperature increase of a CPU during startup is upwards of 60% from the idle temperature. The higher the temperature, the harder your hardware components have to work to keep your computer safe and running effectively. The harder your components have to work, the more power that is required. The more power required, the harder the Power Supply has to work. See my meaning.

You currently have a 300Watt Power Supply. Now, in 2003, this probably was adequate for this computer. However, to ask a 300Watt Power Supply to effectively power a computer during a reinstallation is like asking a child's heart to effectively work within an adult.

As you may have seen from the Power Supply link I provided, Power Supplies are relatively inexpensive. The tricky part is making sure that you get a Power Supply that has enough connectors to connect all of your hardware. For example, I recently bought a 630Watt Power Supply from newegg.com for $30. I bought a 575Watt Power Supply from a computer show and sale for $12. I can tell you are frustrated but you still have one more option left, that I can see.

[rgreen4]

My error, I leapt to the conclusion that is was a laptop. I am concerned that you pulled some memory out of the Fujitsu Siemens that is 4 years old and put it in an HP that is newer. I am going to assume that you matched the label on the DIMM (it has been a very long time since the used SIMMs) from the FS and the DIMM that came in the HP to make sure the were the same. (DIMM's are Dual Inline Memory Module and SIMM's are Single Inline Memory Module. The single and double refer to the contacts, a SIMM has each contact position on the front connected to the same contact on the back. A DIMM has them separate, so that the no of contacts is doubled.)

The article you quoted about creating a bootable CD actually was about a process called slipstreaming. This may be the cause of your problem. If you have the original CD without the update, that is what you should try to do the install. It should say on the upper right hand side of the hologram label the version. The XP upgrade versions I have are all 2002 and include Service Pack 2.

The other thing you should do is to replace the memory module you removed and then try to install the OS. If it is so slow that the installation time is being measured in days instead of slightly more than an hour, something is seriously wrong. There is a conflict somewhere. The absolute longest I have ever had XP take to install was 90 minutes.

Now, there may be a hardware issue between your machine and the particular edition of XP you are attempting to install. As time progresses, there are changes in hardware and in the support drivers on the XP install discs. I have had two failures of XP installation. But neither stopped during the install process, they just blue screened when I attempted to boot them after installations. The first one is an older machine that had been (and still is) running Win98, The machine specs (P3 700Mhz, 512MB memory) met the requirements but it would not boot. Since I had other machines, I just put the Win98 drive back in it and kept it as Win98 to refere back to when I get questions on Win98. The other machine was more interesting as it is my current main machine and came with XP Media Center Edition pre-installed by HP. It qualified for the free Vista upgrade (which is what is is running now, and I am using it to reply in this post). When developing the document from Vista to XP, I decided to try installing my XP Home 2000 Upgrade version and had the same problem. I think the problem here is some of the motherboard features conflict with my older 2002 edition of XP. Interestingly enough, it installed beautifully in a test on my newest machine a home built.

If you are using an XP disc without a Service Pack or even the Service Pack 1, the slipstreaming SP2 onto it could be the cause of the problem.