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Windows ME setup hangs during plug and play detection phase
Hello,
I'm trying to reinstall Win ME and the installation process continuously hangs during the hardware plug and play detection phase. Wondering if anyone can help me out. Here are some details of what I'm doing:
I'm booting to DOS using a Win ME startup disk.
I'm running the setup from DOS (I have a copy of the Win ME CD in a folder on my harddrive)
I have an Inspirion 7000 with the latest BIOS update (PII, 400MHz, 128MB Ram - I know time for a new computer but I want to use this one as a print server / occasional guest computer)
I have had Win ME working on my machine for a couple of years and after installing some router software nothing worked anymore (couldn't boot up at all) so that's why I'm reinstalling ME.
In my system.ini file I have commented out (REM) the display driver line as suggested in a Microsoft article
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
KFR
osprey4
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February 23rd, 2004 22:00
Have you already formatted the drive?
I found these two articles:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;268891
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;262381
The second one specifically deals with problems during hardware detection. You've removed any non-essential hardware, right?
KFR
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February 24th, 2004 12:00
Thanks for the suggestions, osprey4.
I did find those articles (among others) and I tried all of those suggestions but I can't seem to reinstall over my previous installation.
I'm getting a little frustrated so I think that I'll back up all my data and format the drive and get on with the inevitable.
Thanks again though.
KFR
osprey4
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February 24th, 2004 21:00
Ok, well that answers my first question. You will be much better off backing up your data, formatting and reinstalling from scratch.
Let me add another piece of advice. After you reinstall ME and your drivers and important applications, use Ghost or some other drive backup utility to create an image of your clean installation that can be easily restored. I've found that, using Ghost, I can backup ME/driver/apps all onto two 700MB CD-RWs. Then, reinstallation becomes a 10-minute task, rather than a 3-hour chore.
neopolitik
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February 29th, 2004 03:00
hi there, this error usually comes when the windows me is reinstalled and the antivirus is running (especially norton system works).
check for corrupt hardware, newly attached hardware
when the windows gets stuck on the detection phase, restart the computer with the startup disk and type the following commands..
smartdrv
cd windows\inf
del oem*.inf
there can be a few thousand to 80-90,000 files of this kind and all of size 0. you can check before deleting then and make sure you are only deleting the files of 0 size. it's gonna take a while.. after this restart the computer and the computer should work fine this time.
mail me for any response
neopolitik