Restarting during XP installation

doodah · 18 Sep 2007 at 23:16

Trying to do a fresh install on friends computer. Whilst backing up the comp was ok (sluggish no serious problems). During XP installation (when the setup files are been loaded) it restarts the computer just at the last bit. Once i managed to get to the stage where you choose to install windows, repair etc but it restarted after a few secs. Now it just restarts at the last stage of loading the setup files. Disk look fine, think the disc drive is ok too. Any ideas?

Jokester · 18 Sep 2007 at 23:17

Is this a new build or a reinstall?

I had something similar that I traced to a dodgy IDE cable.

Jokester

bledd · 18 Sep 2007 at 23:24

do a ramtest and a hard drive test, use ultimate boot cd, it's free

as jokester said, could very well be ide cable, or hard drive

ram problems 'tend' to give you a freeze, not a restart, but no depends..

Matt-Page · 19 Sep 2007 at 08:32

dbappa said:
Trying to do a fresh install on friends computer. Whilst backing up the comp was ok (sluggish no serious problems). During XP installation (when the setup files are been loaded) it restarts the computer just at the last bit. Once i managed to get to the stage where you choose to install windows, repair etc but it restarted after a few secs. Now it just restarts at the last stage of loading the setup files. Disk look fine, think the disc drive is ok too. Any ideas?

Could be a number of things and would require a process of elimination.

1) Heat, is the Disk/PC getting too hot?
2) Faulty HDD? Try the HDD in another computer and run chkdsk or indeed install the O/S in another computer to see if that is the problem. If it fails in another PC after a chkdsk, i would safe it isn't worth using that drive
3) Different IDE / SATA cable (try and use a different power cable from the PSU as well)