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

[dearleader]

The floppy image workaround works! Thanks so much!

In any case, this is my boot order (items without a number are disabled):

1. Diskette Drive
2. Internal HDD
3. USB Storage Device
4. CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive
   Modular Bay HDD
   Cardbus NIC
   D/Dock PCI slot NIC
   Onboard NIC

 

[jaclaz]

12 hours ago, dearleader said:

The floppy image workaround works! Thanks so much!

Good , and you are welcome of course.

Still, even if it allows you to boot without excessive typing (or with no typing at all) it remains a workaround .

And the "<Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe" issue remains strange, in the sense that I can find no reason why (without any re-mapping) the grub4dos (now on the floppy) allows to boot it .

There are three ways the grldr (in a setup like yours) can load an XP:

1)

rootnoverify (hd0)
chainloader (hd0)0+1 <-this chainloads the MBR

2)

rootnoverify (hd0,0) <- or - alternatively - root (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)0+1 <- this chainloads the PBR

3) 

root (hd0,0)
chainloader /ntldr <- this chainloads the NT loader directly and it is what you are using successfully 

You can still try to boot to the grldr on hard disk, get to the grub> prompt and issue only:

chainloader (hd0)0+1
boot

and then choose the rdisk(0)disk(1) entry, if it fails, it should mean that the "fix" is the rootnoverify command, which would again point to something "wrong" in the BIOS autodetection/mapping of the hard disk.

The only other  possibility is something in the Registry (but what?).

If you have a sure (tested) way to backup and restore the Registry (i.e. possibly a tested PE of some kind) you could try deleting the contents of the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices and let XP re-build them on next boot, but I don't think that it can be related (I mean an error there wouldn't be solved by grub4dos booting).

jaclaz

Edited August 14, 2022 by jaclaz

[DrunkenTanker]

20 hours ago, jaclaz said:

Care to post a link to this manual from Microsoft?

Because easy to search
 

Quote

 

XP doesn't support UEFI boots and doesn't support booting from an USB device.

There are several, very invasive, modifications necessary to an existing XP install (on a regular hard-drive) after which you can copy the XP install to an USB drive. Even then it is not guaranteed to work with your particular hardware or to remain working after XP installs updates/hotfixes.

 

TS should try original MS CD and then talk about problem.

Edited August 14, 2022 by DrunkenTanker

[jaclaz]

17 minutes ago, DrunkenTanker said:

Because easy to search

Could not find any manual from Microsoft, that's why I asked you.

The quote you made, coming from this:

https://superuser.com/questions/1117858/how-to-install-and-run-windows-xp-operating-system-on-an-external-hard-drive-or

is about ANOTHER thing (installing XP to an USB drive, which BTW is perfectly possible), what OP did was installing XP from a USB drive, as well perfectly possible.

jaclaz

[dearleader]

48 minutes ago, DrunkenTanker said:

TS should try original MS CD and then talk about problem.

I have already tried multiple original disc images from both Microsoft and Dell.

I have set the timeout in my boot.ini to 0 and selected grub4dos as my default, which means I don't even need to use the boot menu. I think my problem is solved.