WindowsXP install stalling - Setup is starting Windows … but it never started ;)

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WindowsXP install stalling - Setup is starting Windows … but it never started ;)

August 9, 2006 by zetwal

I was installing WindowsXP on a PC the other day. Everything was supposed to work fine and it did, for a start until the installation reached “Setup is starting Windows” where it just stalled. Tried many successive reboots but to no avail, the system just hanged there.

So, had to consult Google. After going through several forums that said things like memory problem, hard disk problem, processor problem, i managed to find the solution, it’s more of a hack to me.
So the great solution was: when the installation says “press F6 to load raid…”, just press F5. After some time, a screen will appear with some options about different types of PC. I chose “standard PC with … i486″ and the installation proceeded. Everything worked fine and WindowsXP is happily running on the PC.

Posted in Computing | Tagged error, installing, setup, stall, windows xp | 11 Comments

11 Responses to “WindowsXP install stalling - Setup is starting Windows … but it never started ;)”

on August 18, 2006 at 7:57 am1 Jacky Winters

Wow… I am so lucky Google found this. It WORKED!!!!

Thank you!
on March 2, 2007 at 3:50 am2 SO

Thanks for this. Got me through after crackinh my head for 2 days.
on January 22, 2008 at 1:11 pm3 littlemonsterman

thank you very much my friend. Your advice did the job, i appreciate it!
on March 24, 2008 at 3:46 am4 Brian

this hasnt worked for me any suggestions this hard drive had vista on it so i reformatted it casue i cant stand vista and now when i go to install window xp pro it does what the top post said it hangs at Setup is starting Windows i even bought a brand new hard drive same problem ran fine with vista but i didnt own it someone gave it to me that way any help would be great
on May 3, 2008 at 1:34 pm5 b33znutz

i too had this problem. i too tried all other solutions. i too tried this one. this one is the only one that gave me results. now one thing i noticed, prior to running setup, i formatted the drive with another boot tool thinking that might help. it did not. but after using this solution, i got it to work. when i got to the part where you choose which partition to format, since i had done that, windows gave me an option to skip formatting since it was already done, so i choose that. then, while setup was copying files over, i had all sorts of “cannot copy” errors. i started over yet again, this time letting windows format the drive for me and it worked great. just a note so others dont make the same mistake.
on June 13, 2008 at 5:56 am6 PMain

This totally helped & was something I had never heard of. I was re-imaging a EMachine C2280 & it definately helped Windows XP Home to install. Can;t thank you enough.
on June 21, 2008 at 10:03 pm7 Kunal

Thank You so very much !!! .. was stuck with this error for the past 24 hrs ..

cheers !
on June 23, 2008 at 7:24 pm8 Kevin

Wow….how did all these people get that problem? was it on a specific kind of computer? .. Can’t understand how 7 people got same problem

..I mean I’ve installed Windows XP about 100 times in my life and never got that problem
on June 30, 2008 at 8:41 pm9 Gideon

Yeah, just rebuilding one of these things for a friend, had the same problem…

C2280 Emachine was about to become a C2280 throw you in the lake machine.

Good find man!
on July 3, 2008 at 7:40 am10 Tara

I am having the same problem on an Aspire 5100. It did not work for me. I know that my hardware is all good so I cannot understand why I am having this problem. I took the HD out and installed the setup on a different computer, when the computer went to restart to complete the installation I took it out and put it back into the Acer. Now the system says invalid boot ini. and blue screens. I am going to try to reinstall using FAT file system as that is the way most acers are setup. If that does not work, does anyone know if the Aspire 5100 has a dipswitch on it as the cmos battery is soldered to the board and it would only make scents that there is a dipswitch. If there is what are the settings, thanks in advance for anyone that can help….
on July 17, 2008 at 5:09 am11 phoenix_native

I just sorta some how came across this
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/216251/EN-US/

It’s BS cause they don’t even mention anything like this for XP.
-Worked for me!
Thanks