XP won't install

A friend's PC was running poorly and he wants to clean it off with a fresh install of XP, and give it to his daughter (primarily for surfin' the 'net).
As a precautionary, I ghosted the original image he had, then reformatted the drive.
I attempted to load my slipstreamed version of XP with IE7 and SP3 enbedded. I've used this version a couple times on other PCs so I know for a fact tht it works, but trying to install it on his machine has been unsuccesful.
It analyzes the drive, formats the partition (NTFS) copies all of the files to it, informs me it needs to shutdown and reboot to contiue installation. Once it shuts down and reboots, it starts all over analyzing the drive, formating the partion, and copying the files to it. I tried this 4 times with the same result. Then I started completely over with the original XP CD (not slipstreamed). XP Home, SP1. (very old original) and encountered the same problem. As I said, I've installed this many times before with no issue.
This is an older PC P-3 I think, with the old SDRam sticks (looks like DRR with 2 notches on the pin-edge.
I'm thinking about trying another HDD and see how that goes.

Any other thoughts?

Zero write that hdd.
I use DBAN using the default 3.
Then use a lens cleaners cd. Yep a dirty lens can cause that too.

Give install a whirl and see what happens.

Be sure the cd is CLEAN! A finger print is all it takes sometimes.

I downloaded DBAN and I'll give that a try if this last thing doesn't work (I'll also stop by BestB and pick up a lens cleaner while I'm at it).

But let me run this by you first and see what you think.
This is an old PC (I don't know how old (I should have printed off BelArc & Everst first!) but I'm thinking it was and AMD 1ghz).
When I cleaned cleared off the HDD and reformatted it, I pulled it out of the old PC, removed the jumper and stuck it in my PC as a slave, and proceeded to reformat it. The jumper ws set to "Limit to 32 gigabytes", I reformatted it, then reinstalled it in the old PC, set to "Master" (not limit to 32g). I'm thinking the bios is not set to handle the HDD and it was causing the XP install to fail.

Could this be it, maybe?

btw, I re-jumpered it back to "limit to 32gig" and I'm trying the reiinstall again.
It's just painfully SLOW!

ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH!

That didn't work either.
I also tried loading the XP install disc from a different CD Drive on the PC, same result. (so I don't think the lens is dirty and I cleaned the CD again before I attempted both of these.
It completes copying all the files (this takes about 10 minutes) then it says it is configuring XP and will restart the PC. When it restarts, it starts completely over, analyzing my PC all over again.

When you see it start to reboot, remove the CD so it will boot off of the hard drive, (instead of the CD again).

something isn't right.........

before I read your post, I reimaged the drive with the ghost backup I had taken.
when I tried to boot from it I received:

Quote:

---

searching for Boot Record... Not Found
Boot Failure
Insert Boot diskette in A:

---

then I read your last post and tried installing it again and ejecting the CD before it rebooted, same message

Quote:

---

searching for Boot Record... Not Found
Boot Failure
Insert Boot diskette in A:

---

I also tried installing XP on a different HDD and got the same results.
:confused:

Go into the BIOS during the re-boot, and make sure it is set to boot from hard drive first.

Fortunately, I did write down the mobo (I simply forgot).

It's a Gigabyte Technologies 7ZXE
BIOS is 8/6/02

I suspect my problem root cause is the mobo/BIOS, since I've tried this multiple times with a SlipStreamed XP and an original XP CD and on 3 different HDDs, and now restoring backing to the original Ghost image.
It looks like it can't boot from the new install, and this is causing the system to reboot from the cd each time and start over.

I never experienced this with a new install (or slipstream) so I'm stumped why this is occurirng.

With all that you have attempted it sounds like either the BIOS was corrupted and/or all of the messing around in the case caused damage to the Motherboard.

If you can, get a live Linux CD such as Knoppix or Ubuntu and run it without installing it. It should run and if it does not you know that you probably have a problem that does not pay to fix.

You can try to wipe the BIOS and then flash it again but be careful as you need to make sure that you know what you are doing and that you have the proper BIOS flash on a floppy. Of course at this point if nothing else is working you have nothing to lose.

Good Luck.

Doc

I believe the mobo is ok, as I can install XP, just not boot to it.
i'm inclined to believe it's the BIOS, but haven't looked at refreshing it yet. (on my list of to-do's!)

Secs for mobo and downloads
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=1318

Pull the battery and keep it out for 20 minutes to reset the bios or use the jumper.

Manual
http://europe.giga-byte.com/FileList...-7zxe_2x_e.pdf