Allanon July 7, 2008 Share Allanon Member July 7, 2008 It's been almost a year since I last reformatted and I figured it's time to reformat again. However, after putting in the windows cd and booting up my comp (my cd drives boot before my Hard drives) it says Inspecting system hardware configuration or something like that and then the screen goes blank... I've waited for at least 10 minutes so I'm wondering if anyone knows what to do, or any ways to find out whats going on. Thanks a bunch, Allanon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthos July 7, 2008 Share monthos Member July 7, 2008 Which OS? Is the disc a known good disc and undamaged? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allanon July 7, 2008 Author Share Allanon Member July 7, 2008 Which OS? Is the disc a known good disc and undamaged? Windows XP SP2 (I have two discs and both work when I put them in while I'm in windows) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher July 7, 2008 Share Preacher Member July 7, 2008 do you have 4gb or more of RAM? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allanon July 7, 2008 Author Share Allanon Member July 7, 2008 (edited) No only 2GB of Ram Should I post all my system specs? Edited July 7, 2008 by Allanon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX July 7, 2008 Share NOFX Member July 7, 2008 Never ran into this problem. Givin the message.. "inspecting system hardware" before it goes blank. My educated guess is that it's a hardware problem. Remove some hardware and try again. Or try booting off a ubuntu CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthos July 7, 2008 Share monthos Member July 7, 2008 hrm, I still think it sounds familiar to some problems I had with a bad disc awhile ago. However since you have two that ruins that theory. If you are overclocked I would go back to stock for the time being, and remove unnecessary hardware then retry the install. When the screen goes blank does the cd drive keep reading? Imw ondering if its something simple like changes display output to the other video port, be it VGA or DVI at that point, that has confused me on some older hardware during linux installs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allanon July 7, 2008 Author Share Allanon Member July 7, 2008 (edited) hrm, I still think it sounds familiar to some problems I had with a bad disc awhile ago. However since you have two that ruins that theory. If you are overclocked I would go back to stock for the time being, and remove unnecessary hardware then retry the install. When the screen goes blank does the cd drive keep reading? Imw ondering if its something simple like changes display output to the other video port, be it VGA or DVI at that point, that has confused me on some older hardware during linux installs. I remember that when I installed Ubuntu on my other hard drive however I tried both AVG and DVi and I got the same problem... I will try this again to tell you what the error was exactly. P.S. It's not really an error it just says Inspecting system configuration or something... like it normally does before loading the devices for partitioning the hard drive. I don't know what hardware could be causing problems with this. Also could my master boot record be corrupted and maybe I should re-write it? Edited July 8, 2008 by Allanon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allanon July 8, 2008 Author Share Allanon Member July 8, 2008 If it makes any difference I had Ubuntu on my other Hard drive at one point... I restored the master boot record because I lost my linux partition CD (was some nifty software that I burned into a bootable ISO) and now I just deleted the partition that had Linux on my other hard drive. Sorry for the double post. Oh and it hangs on Setup is inspecting your current hardware configuration Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX July 8, 2008 Share NOFX Member July 8, 2008 The info on the hard drive "shouldn't" cause it to hang. Have you tried booting off a ubuntu cd? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allanon July 8, 2008 Author Share Allanon Member July 8, 2008 The info on the hard drive "shouldn't" cause it to hang. Have you tried booting off a ubuntu cd? Not yet... should I try that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ilovetomatoes July 8, 2008 Share ilovetomatoes Member July 8, 2008 You can try a knoppix live cd to look at the hardware. It boots into linux off of the CD without modifying your drives. www.knoppix.org Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX July 8, 2008 Share NOFX Member July 8, 2008 (edited) yea man, that would be about the first thing I'd do. Boot from a CD other than windows and see what happens. If you get ubuntu up and running live, you can use gparted to format the drive. Even though I wouldn't think so, it may have something to do with partitions or what you did to the mbr. The only downside to this is that if you still can't load windows after gparted, then your stuck without being able to install windows. Another thing I would do first before anything else is remove all drives but your main drive. You could also find another known working hard drive and just stick that in there(If it works from that, you know its not the drive) EDIT* Im now starting to think it may be your combination of drives, something you did with the MBR or partitions.. Try some of the stuff I said above and see what happens. Edited July 8, 2008 by NOFX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allanon July 8, 2008 Author Share Allanon Member July 8, 2008 yea man, that would be about the first thing I'd do. Boot from a CD other than windows and see what happens. If you get ubuntu up and running live, you can use gparted to format the drive. Even though I wouldn't think so, it may have something to do with partitions or what you did to the mbr. The only downside to this is that if you still can't load windows after gparted, then your stuck without being able to install windows. Another thing I would do first before anything else is remove all drives but your main drive. You could also find another known working hard drive and just stick that in there(If it works from that, you know its not the drive) EDIT* Im now starting to think it may be your combination of drives, something you did with the MBR or partitions.. Try some of the stuff I said above and see what happens. Gparted that's it! I was trying to remember what that awesome Linux formatting software was. To be on the safe side I'm gonna do all this after FragFest so I'll wait till next week. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX July 8, 2008 Share NOFX Member July 8, 2008 *You could also find another known working hard drive and just stick that in there(If it doesn't work from that, you know its not the drive) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL July 9, 2008 Share dwEEziL Member July 9, 2008 For me, based on you saying the screen goes blank while "inspecting hardware", my initial reaction is that it's related to your video card. I mean, you always get the warning "screen might flash" blah blah blah. I don't know if you've switched to a newer vid card since you last installed or what. Or maybe it's switching to an unsupported resolution. Either way, if you can boot off ubuntu, then it is more than likely a software issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preacher July 9, 2008 Share Preacher Member July 9, 2008 It's not during install it's hanging during the initial boot to cd deal Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL July 9, 2008 Share dwEEziL Member July 9, 2008 But it's doing a hardware scan either way. My gut still thinks it's related to the vid card. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
monthos July 9, 2008 Share monthos Member July 9, 2008 For me, based on you saying the screen goes blank while "inspecting hardware", my initial reaction is that it's related to your video card. I mean, you always get the warning "screen might flash" blah blah blah. I don't know if you've switched to a newer vid card since you last installed or what. Or maybe it's switching to an unsupported resolution. Either way, if you can boot off ubuntu, then it is more than likely a software issue. Hah that just reminded me of a problem I had with my voodoo3 back in the day. It would lock up on windows2k if ran in 640x480 for anything more than 30 seconds to a minute. This made installs of windows pretty much impossible, basically I had to install with another video card, download drivers, shut down and race with the lockup to get drivers installed before it locked. once I ran in a more normal 1024x768 res, it would be rock stable for weeks between power cycles. I never was able to figure out why it did that, many different win2k install discs were used over the years at different service pack levels. A little off topic I know, though I guess it just reinforces the video card theory a little more... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrX July 18, 2008 Share mrX GC Alumni July 18, 2008 DBAN Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NOFX July 22, 2008 Share NOFX Member July 22, 2008 so whats the verdict did you figure it out? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dwEEziL July 22, 2008 Share dwEEziL Member July 22, 2008 DBAN x2 DBAN (Darik's Boot And Nuke) rocks the casbah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yErMoTH3r July 27, 2008 Share yErMoTH3r GC Founder July 27, 2008 nuke the MBR - trust me its a grub/lilo/linux thing dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 hda may be sda depends pata or sata use systemrescuecd http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page if you want to use a dos/freedos based solution fdisk /MBR http://www.bootdisk.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now