Anyone else mess up their XP install process?

[mderidder]

My install got goofed shortly after it began, and now I cant seem to even get that far.

I've deleted the partition and started over a few times and I'm afraid I'm only making it worse. Anyone else have botched installs? Do I have to do something special to resume a normal install?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Mark

[Spooof]

Are you talking bootcamp? If so I had to restart my XP install once and then it continued without a hitch. Most everyone one else I believe installed without a hitch (from what I have read)

[mderidder]

Yeah, I'm talking about boot camp... and yeah it seems I'm the only one having this issue!;)

I think it might be because I had a USB thumb drive attached to the back of my imac when I installed because it was stuck on some statement about loading a "univseral... blah blah blah". Anyone else try installing xp with a thumb drive in place?

Anyhow, when I do a reinstall as the user guide instructs... it just goes to a balck screen with a blinking cursor instead of the win xp setup screen.

oie.

And when i try to do the whole thing over again without a thumb drive in place.. i still get issues.

-Mark

[Frischluft]

I have the same problem on a mac mini core duo, 2gb. When the mac reboots i get the stupid apple startup bong, screen becomes light gray and goes black immediatly. Some cd access happens and then it just sits until i do a hard reset.

The windows installer used to copy the files and goes black afterwards but at some point it even stoped doing that. Repartioning the disc does not help neither does resetting up the mac from scratch.

[Frischluft]

It was a monitor issue for me. The setup tried to open a not supported resolution. Using another monitor it works now.

[mderidder]

Thanks Frishluft, but it won't help me. My problems are so random... sometimes it doesnt get to the blue windows set-up screen. Sometimes It goes all the way to the format partition (once), but then has a disc error. Sometimes it freezes when loading stuff before the partition section.

I'm wondering if I'm having a CD-rom drive problem? It makes repeditive beep like noises when failing.

ah well.

any other suggestions? Or anyone else have the same issue? It'd be nice to know I'm not alone:)

everyone else is enjoying a care-free experience it seems.

-mark

[rsande]

I've reinstalled 2 or 3 times now...the farthest I get is:

Start Windows Setup
Choose partition
Format NTFS (full)
Copy files
Restart
"<windows root>\system32\hal.dll" not found, could not boot.

So I boot into recovery, go into C:\windows\system32...hey look! there's a file called hal.dll!

Found some tips online (bootcfg /rebuild, fixboot) didn't work. Afraid to try fixmbr - might make it not boot OS X anymore...I hate windows :-/

_________
edit:
not sure what fixed it, but it works now.
I rebooted into OS X, mainly to make sure it still worked. Then ran BCA again, reset to 1 partition, rebooted, repartitioned a 30gig for windows (planning to do FAT32 so I have easy file access mac->windows, but not windows->mac). booted to CD, keyboard locked at windows setup. rebooted, happened again. plugged in an external (wireless) mouse/kb, tried again. worked fine! didn't check if laptop worked or not. anywho, back to installing windows, need to finish this up tonight!

[mderidder]

Interesting, your problems sound very similar to mine. But I never got past the reformatting of the windows partition. I tried a full FAT, and it said something was wrong with the disc. And then I never got that far again.

Interesting that using a wireless mouse/kb worked for you since they say it shouldn't.

I guess I may just have to keep trying and one day I will get all the way through! It's just so exhausting. And I think I've partitioned and unpartitioned about 15 times now... and that doesnt seem to be a good thing to do.

I may just have to wait for Leopard. Anyone have any other suggestions?

-Mark

[JayMac]

I use a Gyration USB wireless kb and mouse setup, it works fine. Once in while if I hold down alt to switch OS'es it will miss it.

Overall, very impressed with Boot Camp, just wish the Mini had a bigger internal HD...

[rsande]

mderidder:

did you actually erase your entire HD once? like, boot from your 10.4 DVD, open Disk Utility, click the HD (not partitions) and Erase? That is where I started. Then I just installed macosx once, never redid that - updated everything, installed BCA. Had to chop up and unchop my HD a couple times.

BTW, never saw a message that something was wrong with the disc, always "<windows root>\system32\hal.dll was not found" "please reinstall".

Just wanted to clarify a few things on both ends! Best of luck.


PS if it is saying that your disc is having problems...what edition is it? Maybe you should try a new disc. If it's a full version of XPP, maybe you can borrow someone else's and use your own key or something.

[mderidder]

Rsande,

I didnt go so far as to wipe my HD and reinstall OS X, and I dont think I will. My issues seem to be related to the CD-rom... whcih is my only guess since this problem is so random, other than always being present only when trying to boot from the CD.

Plus, I've noticed in OS X that it will spit out DVD's a few seconds after they've been put in. But if I try again, it will usually take. So I'm starting to feel good about the idea that this is a CD/DVD-rom problem. I think I will call Apple tonight to verify. Thank god for Apple care.

Thanks again for your help!
-mark

P.S. I am using a back-up CD copy of XP Pro SP2. That could be the problem too. I dont know.

[mderidder]

I Got it!

After much trial and error, persistance has paid off! I FINALLY pushed through an XP install with what appears to be a finiky optical drive.

Every now and then the DVD-rom would flake out and I'd have to restart... well once I actually got past the partition stage, things became easier and if I had to restart at that point it would pick up where it left off.

Sooo, all is well now. I am very impressed with the performace of XP on my iMac.

Thanks for everyone's help who responded to this post.

-Mark

www.mderidder.com

[ArmyGroo]

I am waiting patiently for the latest round of updates from Apple... looks like 10.4.7 is going to take a couple minutes.

I am hopeful the partitioning back to one and then re-trying boot camp is going to work.... I have so much stuff to put on both sides and test but don't want to waste the time if I am going to have to format a few times.