Windows setup stuck in loop

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 18:21

Ok so i had some sort of problem the other day. Went to turn on the PC and it would start for about a second then reboot etc. It seemed very much like a motherboard problem to me and after swapping my cpu and motherboard for a 754 one from a freind it did seem to be the case.

However the new problem (now i have gone and brought a new mobo) is once i insert the xp disc to try and reinstall/ install windows it gets to the stage "Setup must now restart your computer" after it has loaded certain drivers. After which the pc restarts and goes through the whole process again :confused:

AMD64 939
Geil 1gb dual channel <- tried an identical kit
Ecs nforce3 mobo <- new one

Thanks for any help im pretty stumped tbh.

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 19:03

Thanks for the reply mate but after trying it now simply says "Missing operating system_"

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 19:37

Ok tried that. It loaded all the drivers and what not on the blue screen but then when it came to the "setup starting windows" bit it restarted and seemed to forget the whole thing had happened. When the disk is removed it just flashes missing operating system.

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 20:07

I have an old comp which i have tried to put the drive in. When it came to boot (had the regular drive on one ide channel and the hd out of my normal comp on another) it got to the windows scrolling loading screen but then no further. Good idication of hard drive failure too you think?

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 20:15

Popping up my mates house now to get a 40Gb drive he has spare. Will report back in a little while.

Thanks for the responses

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 20:16

nokinidea said:
It is looking like a dicky HDD.

Presume you did the
"delete partition" then create new partition and format in NTFS and not the fast option...

Or is that after the initial setup screen

Nope the first bit is just auto loading drivers and the like. No user input really.

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 21:38

Ok got the hard drive from my mate and and now where it used to say no operating system it now says NTLDR missing ctrl alt del to restart.

Really starting to take the pee now.

dun · 11 Oct 2006 at 21:49

Street said:
To fix that.. Boot to the XP CD and choose repair installation (R) when it gets to that part. Log into your Windows installations and enter your admin password.

When thats done, copy the two files below to the harddrive from your CD..

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

(Change the letters depending on what your drives are).

Might be worth doing a chkdsk /p /r on the drive and also a fixboot.

Hope that helps

Thanks mate but for one there isnt a current install on the drive so i cant log in for the R thing, and i have copied the ntldr and ntdetect files to C: from another comp. And its a different drive to the other one.

Im going to laugh or ill cry. Seriously taking the biscuit this is

dun · 13 Oct 2006 at 19:34

Ok fixed it just. Got my freinds almost complete second pc and built it up again. It did the same thing with everything different... except the DVD ROM DRIVE!!! which i used from my normal computer. Switched it for another cdrw and bumpf straight through no problems. So it seems i had some kind of problem which took out my motherboard and dvd drive at the same time :/

Anyway thanks a lot to all those that replied.