Ack! WinXP won't install!

[BaconTastesGood]

I'm getting weird errors on my brand new system. I had WinXP installed fine with my Duron 850, I just swapped CPUs to an Athlon XP1800. Booted fine (to CD), but when I ran the install I couldn't format the drive "correctly". It would go to the end then say an error was encountered (when 100% completed). I tried both Quick format and a full format, same problem. I then did a full format, followed by a Quick format, at which point it allowed me to continue. But then while copying files it had a problem with one file -- retried, was fine. Then during the actual install, I got a blue screen with "PFN_LIST corrupt".

What the hell is going on? This is with a brand new Seagate 80GB IDE HDD, Shuttle AK31a, everything else works fine. CPU temp is 45 C -- not great, but not horrible either. Everything else seems to check out fine on this thing.

 

[BaconTastesGood]

I've tried swapping cables and swapping hard drives, and I've removed all my cards, and I still get corrupted files during install. Anyone have ideas? I've tried two different cables -- the last thing I'm going to try is swapping the CD-ROM and swapping the IDE cable. I've tried both IDE ports. I figure if I've tried all that, then it's either my copy of WinXP (I doubt that) or it's the MB.

 

[LostHiWay]

I would say MB or memory. I just had the same thing happen to me...an it was my Motherboard. It somehow booted ok but would corrupt files when trying to install an OS. I couldn't install win2000, XP. I got through a Win98 setup but it was not pretty once I got into windows...errors all over.

 

[Dan]

BaconTastesGood: Check your bios and motherboard settings. Make sure nothing is overclocked or "stressed." Everytime I've run into a scenario such as you describe the source of the problems was an overclocked system. Each time I reset the CPU and FSB to their default speeds I eliminated the problem/s and was able to install whatever version of Windows I happened to be working with.

 

[BaconTastesGood]

Dan,

I've loaded the "fail safe" Defaults, which are pretty conservative. Upon further investigation it looks like the culprit may be either the DIMM slots or the DIMMs themselves.

 

[IBuySouls]

My vote is memory.
I had a similar problem, one day I got a corrupted kernel in win2k, couldn't format the drive without errors and couldn't install an operating system at all, even with Win98 I couldn't get past the setup process. Had the hard-drive sent away, didn't solve it. Thought it could be hard-drive controller so sent MB away, no dice. So I replaced my memory and bingo, everything was fine again. So, if you have some extra lying around try that or ask a buddy really nicely and see if that solves it. My $.02

 

[Dan]

If you're using failsafe defaults then I agree that the next likely culprit is your memory.