W2K Freeze on Install 1

[Megz]

I was trying to rebuild a "old" Dell Latitude C810 when during the W2K Prof setup of the partitions it froze on me. Now whenever I try to do the install again it goes through Setup but when it reaches the "Setup is starting Windows 2000" it just hangs. I have tried using the normal Windows 2000 Professional Disk, the Dell Operating System Reinstalling CD and also some boot disk's which I had from another system. They all go through the same process and hang at the same spot.

I have updated the BIOS but not sure what else to do. Anyone have a suggestion?

Thanks

 

[sioxley]

You might have a problem with the hard drive. Have you deleted\recreated the partions and re-formatted the drive etc?

I know the old Dell C600's had terrible problems with hard disk failures and what you describe rings a bell.

 

[Jump1ng]

I would as sioxley says test the hard drive for failures, go to the makers of the drives webpage and download their diagnostic tools and have it check the drive.

Also I would download a memory testing program as it could be faulty ram crashing Windows as it starts.

http://www.memtest.org/

 

[Megz]

Thanks to both of you. Yes I deleted one partition and was in the process of deleting/reformatting the boot partition when it originally crased. I also tried Jump1ng's suggestion of the diagnostic tool but it just sits there with the black screen with the flashing white cursor without it doing anything ...

 

[sioxley]

Hi Megz. Happy to help out. It really does sound like the drive is on the way out. Especially after what you said about reformatting and the diagnostic tool. Even if you did get this drive going I don't think I'd trust it for very long. The safest bet is to replace it.

Take care

 

[prinand]

during bootup you can press CTRL-ALT-D (immediately press these keys after turning on) then you get into a bios HDD test, which does a basic test on your HDD

if the HDD is OK, I would use a Win98 startup disk to delete any exisiting partition. (although the W2K setup also allows you to delete all aprtitions and create new ones from scratch...)

on the dell website you can also download the Dell diagnosics on floppy which can do a more comprehensive test on your HDD

 

[prinand]

oh and forgot to mention, we have a few specific C610 models which will freeze too during setup. we found that the solution for this was to disable the USB, parallel and IR port. once the setup is finished, you can just enable them again, and they will be installed without any further problems