A-Bit BH-6 PIII Won't Install OS

[StAugGuy]

I have an old ABIT BH6 that I use as a basic workstation. It has a P-3 450mhz CPU and 512MEGS RAM..

I had it running XP just fine and then I went and installed a printer driver. Due to efforts to get the printer working, I fiddled with BIOS settings (Normally, I know what I am doing there) but I never could get the printer working right, so I bagged that particular project when the computer started getting really unstable. Files couldn't be written to the HD and corruption..

So, since I bagged the printer project, I decided to whack the HD and start over..

But, XP wouldn't install. I tried several different XP CDs, several different HDs and several different CD Drives. All had the same result. It would get about 6%-8% done and then give me error messages that file XXXX.xxx did not copy over correctly. The files were sometimes the same files, sometimes different files, but always within that 6-8% area...

OK, I figured I had messed up the BIOS settings, and that was causing the problems, so I set the BIOS back to DEFAULT settings..

Same problems...

I have tried XP, 2000 even 98-SE and it still has the same problems. I have tried different Ribbon Cables and placing the HD and the CD Drive on the same IDE connector and on seperate IDE connectors. Same problem..

I KNOW that this computer will work with XP, because it has..

But I am at a loss to figure out exactly what's wrong...

Anyone provide me with a clue??

Thanx

[Chai]

Maybe motherboard problem, since it's so old, capacitors leakage being the most likely issue.

Check for any capacitor bulging or not.

[The_YongGrand]

Originally Posted by StAugGuy

I have an old ABIT BH6 that I use as a basic workstation. It has a P-3 450mhz CPU and 512MEGS RAM..

I had it running XP just fine and then I went and installed a printer driver. Due to efforts to get the printer working, I fiddled with BIOS settings (Normally, I know what I am doing there) but I never could get the printer working right, so I bagged that particular project when the computer started getting really unstable. Files couldn't be written to the HD and corruption..

So, since I bagged the printer project, I decided to whack the HD and start over..

But, XP wouldn't install. I tried several different XP CDs, several different HDs and several different CD Drives. All had the same result. It would get about 6%-8% done and then give me error messages that file XXXX.xxx did not copy over correctly. The files were sometimes the same files, sometimes different files, but always within that 6-8% area...

OK, I figured I had messed up the BIOS settings, and that was causing the problems, so I set the BIOS back to DEFAULT settings..

Same problems...

I have tried XP, 2000 even 98-SE and it still has the same problems. I have tried different Ribbon Cables and placing the HD and the CD Drive on the same IDE connector and on seperate IDE connectors. Same problem..

I KNOW that this computer will work with XP, because it has..

But I am at a loss to figure out exactly what's wrong...

Anyone provide me with a clue??

Thanx

1.) Are they 40-wire or 80-wire IDE cable? They made a difference.

2.) Check the capacitors for bulging and burn marks near the inductors.


3.) At last resort, clear the CMOS. Rip out the battery, wait a while and put it back and see how it all goes.

hope that helps.

[StAugGuy]

Many thanx to the replies..

With the idea that there might be a bad cap, I really got down to the nitty gritty with this motherboard...

I thoroughly inspected the motherboard. Couldn't find a bad cap..

I pulled the CPU and DIMMS, reseating them..

I replaced the ATA33 with an ATA66 cable (Can't believe I missed that)...

None of it worked...

Thinking I might have a bad mem stick, I pulled one 256 DIMM and retried.. Same problem..

I pulled the other...

SUCCESS!!!!

The OS installed perfectly..

So, I guess one of my sticks went teats up while I was playing with the printer..

Thanx again for the suggestions. It put me on the right track..

[The_YongGrand]

Great to hear that you've solved the problem. Most of the time a freaky memory stick could render a whole system freaky too!

[slugbug]

I had a similar problem trying to install XP on a new PC recently. I was using an older BenQ 1620 DVD drive which worked fine on another PC, but gave install errors on this one. Swapped it for an old 52x cdrw and XP installed fine.