Problem when installing Windows XP Pro

<A HREF="http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWSXP/pro/using/howto/gettingstarted/guide/troubleshoot.asp#TSE" target="_new">Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup</A>

I suggest that you install the operating system with a minimum of devices. In other words, no sound card, NIC card, etc. Only what is actually needed to place the operating system on the hard drive. You can always install these components later on, with the newest drivers available from the manufacturer.

This method you help you isolate the problem.

It would also be a good idea to look for any new BIOS updates for your mainboard before attempting the installation a second time.

Toejam31

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Are you installing on a "fresh" fdisked & formatted disk or running the upgrade from a previous windows version?

He's probably figured it out by now, tomcat ... (or given up), since the date of the original post was March of 2002.

And by the way, in my experience, most IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL STOP errors when initially installing WinXP are either due to incompatibilities with the BIOS version, an inadequate or overheating PSU, damaged or mismatched memory modules, mainboard damage (like bad capacitors), or (last, but not least) a problem with a driver being loaded, which could be due to something like a sharing issue with the AGP port and PCI Slot 1, (which could effect the video card, as you mentioned) or a missing driver, such as for a RAID controller.

I recall that in Win2K, almost all the IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL errors I encountered were either software or IRQ/driver-related, but over the past year or so, I've seen more BIOS, memory, and PSU issues when installing WinXP than just standard driver errors, which makes troubleshooting problems of this nature more than unusually difficult, unfortunately ... especially without detailed system specs being posted.

Toey

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