2 1/2 hours and counting for loading xp

sup2jzgte

sup2jzgte

New Member
WOW! I'm not sure how normal this is but I have been reformatting my old Dell 2400 for 2 1/2 hours now and it is only at 38% and has been there for the last 22 minutes. On my newest build it took all of 25 minutes to load Windows XP onto the drive, but this one is turning into a marathon. Is this normal or is this precursor to future issues?
 
If a format is taking that long, either something is wrong with the HDD itself or the Windows installer loaded quirky. In any event, I'd start fresh and see if it's quicker.
 
Ok I have changed hard drives and cables, but yet it is still taking over an hour to install XP home. Over an hour now and its only at 39%..............Whats the deal? I mean it is fresh install on a reformatted drive
 
vk3fcll said:
New hard drive.

how old is it???
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I have tried a 1 year old drive and a brand new one now and still the same result. I mean it is a 2.4 GHZ processor with 2 gigs of ram and it was running just fine a few days ago and now since I changed cases this damn thing is only giving me headaches and Im not sure why. It seems to keep hanging at 38-39 %
 
I wouldnt bother to keep starting over, let it go through the whole process then see how the PC is acting. If its still running slow then you know there is issues...
 
Some style of formatting the HDD will permanently remove the files (not even ultra pro hackers can get the files back) and those kinds of formats take longer than usual.
 
sup2jzgte said:
I have tried a 1 year old drive and a brand new one now and still the same result. I mean it is a 2.4 GHZ processor with 2 gigs of ram and it was running just fine a few days ago and now since I changed cases this damn thing is only giving me headaches and Im not sure why. It seems to keep hanging at 38-39 %
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Is it a new motherboard????

If it is i may know why!
 
How long SHOULD this take?
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Based on your CPU/RAM, I'd say +/-45-55 minutes total install from booting the CD to activation. How old is the drive you're trying to install on? You mentioned it was fine a short while ago, but HDD's are mechanical in nature (moving parts inside) and sometimes they just stop working as they should.

I wouldnt bother to keep starting over, let it go through the whole process then see how the PC is acting. If its still running slow then you know there is issues...
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Why let it go that far? 2 1/2 hours only to hang at 38% is fairly indicative of a problem. In this case, a full install (if it will even go that far) is not needed to see there are already issues.

Some style of formatting the HDD will permanently remove the files (not even ultra pro hackers can get the files back) and those kinds of formats take longer than usual.
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That is not the case with a format via the Windows Installer. All it's doing is formatting thr drive, not shredding it or making multiple passes.

If it is i may know why!
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Enlighten him/us instead of being a tease?
 
Maybe it's your Windows disk. It really shouldn't take more than say 55 minutes, i've reinstalled Windows on my mates Thunderbird 1Ghz with 256mb ram and that only took about that.
 
LOL wow oh wow, I let this thing go last night at 1am and now its 1pm and the damn thing is JUST now getting into the windows setup process. The mobo model E210882 by Dell, the Hard Drives I have been working with are 5400rpm each. Im starting to wonder if its the Cd Rom drive maybe
 
Ok its still going on the setup screen. I have done the following:

Tried 2 different Hard drives
2 Different windows XP CD's

And its taking over 12 hours now. The only 2 things I can come up with is

A. Something in the Bios is wrong....................does anyone know the default settings for a dell 2400

B. The CD Rom is going out the door and is reading it to slow.
 
2 things to check....You might have bad ram or your cdrom drive might be on the way out. But i would check your memory first. Run Memtest on it to check for errors.
 
johnb35 said:
2 things to check....You might have bad ram or your cdrom drive might be on the way out. But i would check your memory first. Run Memtest on it to check for errors.
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How do you run memtest? I have never used it and will it work on a clean drive?

Also in the Bios it is showing all 2 gigs of ram
 
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You download memtest, its an image file and then burn the image to cd using Nero, Roxio or other burning software that will work with image files. You would then boot to it and it will run tests on the memory. Microsoft has a memory tester but I haven't used it so don't know how that works, probably the same way memtest does.
 
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