TROUBLESHOOTING THE XP INSTALLATION

Installation problems can be caused by a number of factors. The following bullet list shows

the most common causes of problems and their solutions:

• Incompatible BIOS—Obtain compatible BIOS, replace the motherboard with one thathas compatible BIOS, or do not upgrade/install Windows XP.
• BIOS needs to be upgraded—Upgrade the BIOS.
• Incompatible hardware—Replace the hardware or do not upgrade/install Windows XP.
• Incompatible hardware drivers—Obtain Windows XP drivers from the hardware manufacturer.
• Incompatible TSRs—Remove TSRs or obtain updated ones from the software manufacturer.
• Incompatible applications—Obtain upgrades from the software manufacturer.
• Minimum hardware requirements have not been met—Upgrade the hardware. The most likely things to check are the CPU (233MHz minimum) and RAM (64MB minimum).
• A virus is on the hard drive—Run an anti-virus program and remove the virus.
• Pre-installation steps have not been completed—Go back through the list.
• The installation floppy disks or CD is corrupted (not as likely as the other causes)—Try the disk in another machine and see if you can see the contents. For the CD, check to see if a scratch or dirt is on the surface. Clean the CD as necessary.
• Incorrect CD key—Type in the correct CD key to complete the installation. The key is located on the CD or its case.

• ASTOP message occurs when installing a dual-boot system—Boot from the Windows XP installation CD rather than the other operating system.
• The installation halts—Try removing any nonessential hardware, such as network cards, modems, and USB devices, and start the installation again. Reinstall the hardware once XP is loaded.
• The computer locks up during setup and shows a blue screen—Check the BIOS and hardware compatibility.
• A message appears during setup that a device driver was unable to load—Obtain the latest device drivers that are XP compatible and restart the setup program.
• When upgrading from 98 or ME to XP, setup displays an error that states it has disabled the upgrade option—Clean boot the computer and try to run setup again. If that does not work, copy the I386 folder from the Windows XP CD and run setup manually by locating the folder and double-clicking on the WINNT32.EXE file.
• If setup hangs during the file copy phase, the SMARTDRV command in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file has switches that interfered with the installation—Modify the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to remove the SmartDrive switches. See the Multimedia chapter for information on SmartDrive.
• After the file copying has been completed, setup displays the message that it cannot set the required XP configuration information—A hardware conflict is normally the cause.
• A STOP: 0×0000001E (0×800000003, 0xBFC0304, 0X0000000, 0×0000001) error occurs—there is either not enough disk space to load XP, an incompatible or outdated driver installed, or the motherboard BIOS needs updating.
• ASTOP0×00000ED (0x, 0x, 0x, 0x)UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_VOLUMEerror appears (the hexadecimal numbers may vary)—The problem is either the UDMA cable or settings or the file system is damaged. Check to see if a UDMA IDE hard drive is installed and verify that the correct 80-wire, 40-pin cable is being used. If the cable is fine, go into the computer’s BIOS and use the Fail-Safe options for the IDE hard drive. If this is not the problem, use the CHKDSK /R command to repair file system damage.
• The computer has trouble shutting down after installing XP—The problem is that ACPI is either not enabled in the BIOS or not enabled in XP. Go into the system BIOS and ensure that ACPI is enabled. To enable it in Windows XP, click on Start button, point to Control panel, select the Performance and Maintenance category, and click on the Power Options tab. Click in the APM-Enable Advanced Power Management Support option. Several text files located in the folder Windows XP was loaded can be helpful in determining the installation problem—SETUPLOG.TXT and SETUPAPI.LOG. These two files can be opened with any word processor including Notepad.