i am having some trouble with an unnattended cd i'm using. before we get started, i've used it to install windows on my desktop (which i'm using right now) and it worked flawlessly. however when i try to use it on my laptop, in part 1 of setup when the screen is blue and the initial drivers are being loaded when it gets up to the part that lets me select/delete/create a partition the latptop just shuts off. i've tried selecting a different combination of options.. and just leaving it be for a few minutes. still the problem persists. after searching for a solution i found a couple people with the same problem, but no resolve. if anyone has any idea as to what my be causing this or what i can do to prevent it please let me know

thank you in advance for the help

ps before anyone suggests overheating, that is definatly not the problem, i have the laptop proped up with a fan blowing under it

Would you mind telling us if it's an OEM CD used in another make of laptop and what partitions are there etc.?

Would you mind telling us if it's an OEM CD used in another make of laptop and what partitions are there etc.?

hey, sorry i didn't already include that info. the cd is a oem win xp pro, and i'm only doing a single partition. i am not using the dell windows cd that came with the laptop.

so after doing some research and trying several other things i updated the bios to the laptop and went into the HAL options during windows setup. i did both of these steps simultaniously so i'm not quite sure, but something fixed the problem i was having.

this is the link i found about hal. i dont even know if this has anything to do with my problem but something fixed it.. http://www.theeldergeek.com/shutdown_issues_in_xp.htm

I'd say it's BIOS. If you were ghosting then I'd say HAL.

If Setup doesn't detect an ACPI it might just install a Standard PC HAL.

Which option did you choose in the end?