Sam_p_Harris

Honorable
Apr 16, 2012
4
0
10,510
Hello,

First of all, thanks in advance for any help.

I have a Dell Latitude D531 laptop with an AMD X2 2.0 ghz processor, integrated graphics, and 2 gigs of ram. I bought it in 2008, and all the hardware is factory original.

I started having some major registry issues that wouldn't go away in safe mode, so I decided to do a recovery install of XP using the the CD that shipped with the system. The problem is that the recovery install won't finish due to a 0x7e BSOD that pops up during installation. I'm going to check the ram using Memtest86 later today or tomorrow, but I don't think it's preventing the installation from going through. The BSOD usually pops up after the devices are installed, and the system error log indicates a lot Flash Macromedia errors and "security" installation failures (whatever that means).

I'd like to do a clean install, but every time I turn on the computer, it restarts midway through the repair installation (in the part that looks similar to XP Safe Mode). How do I stop the installation and get back to Setup so I can do a clean install?

Thanks so much!
 
Solution
If the machine is in fact booting from the CD, how then does it resume running setup which is on the hard drive? Does your CD have any choices showing of what you might be wanting to do?

If the CD is set to be the first boot device, the computer will skip it as bootable if it doesn't locate bootable media in the drive, and proceed to the next boot device. Check your CD's present capability to be booted and the computer boot sequence to insure the CD drive is in fact the first boot device.

If all else fails, you could re-partition and format the drive so there is no setup to continue, forcing a clean install.

If this is in fact what you determine is needed at this time, see my past post
HERE.

If you can get into a command prompt either thru Recovery Console or Safemode, or slave that drive into another unit, you probably have to remove a "setup" entry that is in the boot.ini file when you started the recovery install.

The boot.ini file is a hidden system file located in the root directory of your primary hard disk drive. To edit this file follow the below steps.

From Windows, open an MS-DOS prompt by clicking "Start" and then "Run" and typing "cmd" in the text box. If you are not able to get into a MS-DOS prompt to edit the boot.ini file, boot into the recovery console to edit the file.
At the MS-DOS prompt, type:

c: <press enter>
cd \ <press enter>
attrib -r -a -s -h boot.ini <press enter>
edit boot.ini <press enter>

A typical boot entry would look like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
 

Sam_p_Harris

Honorable
Apr 16, 2012
4
0
10,510


Thanks for the suggestion, ksiemb! My problem, though, is that I can't get to the Start menu, Command Prompt, or the Recovery Console. Regardless of whether I boot from the CD or from the HDD and no matter which advanced startup mode I start from, it always just restarts the recovery install from from the fourth stage in the process (i.e. the Windows installation itself, giving me no access to the setup stage where you can access the Recovery Console from).
 
If the machine is in fact booting from the CD, how then does it resume running setup which is on the hard drive? Does your CD have any choices showing of what you might be wanting to do?

If the CD is set to be the first boot device, the computer will skip it as bootable if it doesn't locate bootable media in the drive, and proceed to the next boot device. Check your CD's present capability to be booted and the computer boot sequence to insure the CD drive is in fact the first boot device.

If all else fails, you could re-partition and format the drive so there is no setup to continue, forcing a clean install.

If this is in fact what you determine is needed at this time, see my past post
HERE.
 
Solution

Sam_p_Harris

Honorable
Apr 16, 2012
4
0
10,510
"If the machine is in fact booting from the CD, how then does it resume running setup which is on the hard drive?"

Thanks tigsounds! That was actually the problem. My Dell BIOS has two options for changing the boot order: a one-time boot menu accessed through the F12 key (which doesn't work the way I thought it did) and the usual method through the main BIOS settings. I was using the former. All I had to do was change the actual boot order settings and it worked.