XP wont install

[chilifrei64]

maybe I am forgetting something but I am trying to install XP on my sisters laptop. It is about a 3 year old Dell Inspiron. It has XP on it before but the hard drive crashed. I bought a new hard drive and the install makes it all the way down to 8 to 13 min left (at registering components) then it just hangs up. Here is what I have tried

Installation Media:

XP Pro Dell OEM

XP Pro Sp1 Dell OEM

XP Pro SP2 Dell OEM

XP Home SP1 OEM

XP Home SP2 Dell OEM

I have also tried using Windows PE and BDD2007 to deploy XP and it craps out on me too

I have NLited a few installs

I have removed all hardware I can from the laptop(wireless card, modem, battery, additional ram)

I even installed Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's just for sh!ts and giggles and it still locked up.

I have installed XP probably close to a thousand times of times and have never encountered anything like this.

Any other ideas I can try before I tell my sister her computer is garbage?

[cluberti]

Does the machine have a setting for legacy USB? If so, you might want to make sure it's disabled. Also, is this a SATA or PATA IDE disk drive that you're installing to?

[chilifrei64]

There were no Legacy USB settings. Just usb emulation, which was disabled. I have tried a few other things. I have updated the bios to the latest version along with the CD rom firmware from dells website. I have placed all hardware back into the laptop but disabled as much as I could. (internal modem, lan controller, wireless controller, heck even number lock, I have removed any additional boot devices except cd rom and HDD.)

Still stops at registering components (12 min remaining the last 2 times).

It is a PATA Drive

[D_block]

do what i did to the last Dell that was giving me problems. SLave it to your pc, install the os in it when its finshed switch it back . i did this twice so far an it works