Installation hangs up at starting Windows

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Level 1

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Installation hangs up at starting Windows

I've created a 32meg partion with Boot Camp Assistant. When prompted, I installed the XPsp2 disc and pressed install. The computer restarted and brought up a blue screen with "Windows Setup" in the upper left corner. On the white bar on the bottom, it listed the files it was loading. After loading the files, the message was "Setup is starting Windows" And it just hangs there. This is the second time this happened. Both Windows disc are brand new from Microsoft. Can anyone help???

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 10, 2010 5:27 PM

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Answer 1

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Aug 10, 2010 8:35 PM in response to alpenmic

Hi and welcome to Discussions,

might be that you are the 'victim' of the newer XP install CDs which somehow don't give you the chance to reformat the destination partition during the XP install process.

The BootCamp Installation Guide clearly state that you have to reformat the WIndows partition from within the Windows installer.

frederic1943 has posted a workaround to this which can be found in here http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=10179186

Hope it helps

Stefan

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Answer 2

alpenmic Author

Level 1

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Aug 11, 2010 5:43 AM in response to Fortuny

I'm not sure how that workaround is helpful as I never got to a point where it asked for F6 input. The XP PRO disc that I purchased is for SP1. When I called Microsoft, after verifying that I was the licensed user, they sent a disc that is labelled "Not for retail or OEM distribution" for $29. I had the aforementioned problem, and a service tech from AppleCare (who I had called about an unrelated problem) said most issues like that were from a bad disc. I called Microsoft and explained and they sent another disc at no charge. Both discs behaved the same way. Would it be possible to use my original SP1 disc to get to the point where it has the Windows disc format the partition and then, somehow, swap discs???

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Answer 3

Fortuny

Level 7

21,455 points

Aug 11, 2010 5:54 AM in response to alpenmic

Hi,

sorry it's been awhile since I last installed XP so I obviously didn't get the 'timing' right 😉

XP needs to be at least at SP2 level in order to work with BootCamp and can be installed on a Mac.

XP SP1 discs show a far odder behaviour then your problem.

If you have access to a Windows PC you can make yourself a SP2 or SP3 install disc from your SP1 disc by following these instructions http://www.winsupersite.com/xp/sp3_slipstream.asp

And no there is no way to swap discs halfway through the installation.

Or try making a full-disc copy of the XP SP2 discs you have (using CD-RWs so to not waste money) and use the copy for installation.
I use SimplyBurns in OSX for such copying.

Regards

Stefan

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