Setup stops responding at "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..."

[dearleader]

I am trying to reinstall Windows XP Professional on a Dell Latitude D620. The setup process gets to the point where it says Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..., after which the screen goes black. There is no disk activity, and the computer does not respond (not even to toggling Caps Lock). This issue has happened with numerous ISOs of Windows XP, ranging from RTM, SP2, and SP3; retail and OEM media; and installation from optical disc or USB. I have read about this issue, and many suggest stripping the computer down to the bare minimum; this is a laptop, so I cannot do that. There is no floppy drive, and I have no USB ones on hand, so a boot disk will not work. People have also attributed this issue to the hard drive using a partition format Windows does not recognise. I have filled the hard drive with zeroes using DBAN, so that is not a possible cause. The hard drive is also 120 GB in size, so 48-bit LBA is not a problem. How can I fix this issue and install Windows XP?

Edited August 10, 2022 by dearleader

[RainyShadow]

There are plenty of things to disable/remove in D620. 

First you can disable various devices in BIOS setup. 

If it still doesn't work, open the laptop and physically remove whatever you have in the WWAN and WLAN slots, also the bluetooth card (near the left hinge).

 

If you have the version with an nVidia video, it may have gone defective. Try some live Linux (or Windows To Go) with a driver for it to check. 

Also, it won't hurt to run a couple passes of Memtest.

 

[Dave-H]

Have you switched the BIOS to compatible mode?
In my experience AHCI mode will not work unless and until you've got XP installed and can deploy a suitable driver for it.

[dearleader]

RainyShadow, I have disabled the integrated NIC, modem, parallel and serial ports, PC card slot, WiFi card, Bluetooth, and cellular from within the BIOS; this did not solve the issue. I'm pretty sure my version has Intel video. I will run Memtest now.

Dave-H, even though the machine uses a SATA hard drive, there is no option to change it to compatible mode. This laptop is from 2006, so I imagine it is already compatible.

[Dave-H]

Ah, understood!
I'm sure you're right, and of course if the machine is from 2006, there's no reason why it wouldn't install XP!
I suspect, as @RainyShadow has said, there is a hardware fault of some sort.

 

[dearleader]

Memtest has completed, and it found no issues with my RAM. Strangely enough, Linux Mint installs perfectly fine on this laptop (I tested before wiping the drive). However, I would like to keep XP for compatibility reasons.

[Damnation]

@dearleader

It might be a GPU driver issue, try removing GPU drivers from your XP ISO and just use the basic driver, although I'm not sure which GPU drivers XP includes by default.

Do you know what your GPU is?

[dearleader]

I'm pretty sure it's just on-board Intel graphics (GMA 950).

[Damnation]

@dearleader

Try XP Integral Edition and see if that works for you -

https://www.zone94.com/downloads/software/operating-systems/123-windows-xp-professional-sp3-x86-integral-edition

[jaclaz]

If it is Sata and is set (fixed) to AHCI mode you might need to either integrate the Sata drivers or use a F6 floppy (that can be a virtual one).

DELL hardware is notoriously tricky and (at least traditionally) their XP OEM disks were often not entirely standard, I wouldn't be surprised that there are issues installing from a "generic" standard XP CD.

This said, I had a quick look at Dell's site and at first sight I couldn't find Sata/AHCI drivers for download,  so the issue at hand may be completely unrelated.

According to this:

https://www.dell.com/community/Windows-General/Other-Devices-Drivers-Missing-after-Clean-Install-of-Windows-XP/td-p/3465463

it seems like there is not any particular complication in installing XP on that machine, so I wonder what it could be the problem.

Maybe you can try removing the hard disk and do an "offline" install with WINNT32?

jaclaz

Edited August 11, 2022 by jaclaz

[dearleader]

@Damnation I have used Rufus to put Windows XP Integral Edition onto a flash drive. As usual, I see Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration..., but this time, the PC reboots immediately. I suppose that's at least some progress!

@jaclaz How would I go about doing an offline install?

[Damnation]

@dearleader

I've heard that using rufus doesn't always work properly for XP, try using WinPrepUSB instead.

[Dietmar]

@dearleader

On some compis, XP cant be installed via USB.

In this case you need a burned CD (or DVD)  with this XP on it and an IDE or Sata CDROM drive, not USB(!)

Dietmar

Edited August 11, 2022 by Dietmar

[dearleader]

Windows XP Integral Edition has finished installing, save for one problem. When I boot the computer from the hard drive, it shows the following message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing
or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

Strangely, when I use my WinSetupFromUSB flash drive to boot from the hard drive, I can get to Windows XP fine. Should I try burning the ISO to a CD and installing from that instead?

[Dietmar]

Yes, this can happen, when the arcpath is not found for ntoskrnl.exe.

This happens also on the z690 chipset for win10 bit 32, same message as you have.

This problem happens to me also.

This is gone, when you burn your XP.iso to CD and  install XP from CD (or DVD) but only via IDE or Sata.

The same is true for Win10 bit 32

Dietmar