Windows XP setup hangs at “Setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware configuration” at eJoneClicks.com

Windows XP setup hangs at “Setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware configuration”

Published by eJone 2 years ago in Click Tips, Click Tech Tags: No Tags.

This entry is serving as a reminder to myself for the following wretched, irritating and completely unnecessary issue:

SYMPTOM: Upon booting up from a Windows XP installation CD, the screen blanks and the system freezes right after displaying “Setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware configuration”. The system has been known to run Windows XP perfectly before and there has no changes to the hardware.

SOLUTION: Use a partition manager utility to delete any active partitions on the hard drive. Try running the setup again and you will get pass the “Setup is inspecting…” screen.

REASON: XP is very finicky when it comes to being re-installed on a used hard drive. The hard drive that I was trying to install XP on had Linux and XP gets a bit upset when you try to install it in company with existing Linux boot info.

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16 Responses to “Windows XP setup hangs at “Setup is inspecting your computer’s hardware configuration””

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1 Manolo Sep 19th, 2007 at 3:23pm

yeah, I tried that and it doesn’t work
2 TK Dec 23rd, 2007 at 12:41am

Patience required here. I had the same issue after corrupting my partition table. I spent 4 hours investigating various utilities on my UltimateBootCD — each resulting in messages telling my partition table was invalid and not recognizing any partition. Finally out of desperation I loaded the Windows Setup CD again and let it go blank after “Inspecting your configuration” … the HDD light activity blinked sporadically for about a minute and then nothing for about 10-15 minutes. Finally the hard disk spun up and I was greeting with the blue installation screen. I chose R to go to the recovery console and did a fixmbr. I rebooted and was then greeted with the prettiest XP splash page I’d ever seen.
3 tehka Dec 26th, 2007 at 5:07am

Thanks for sharing this.

I have this same exact problem and I would like to share a solution that worked for me.

1. Disconnect the ribbon cable to harddisk.
2. Insert WinXP SP2 CD and power on computer.
3. Boot to CD.
4. With the ribbon cable to harddisk disconnected, it will go pass the inspecting hardware phase.
5. Connect the ribbon cable without powering off pc.
6. Run Recovery console.
7. Type: chkdsk /r
8. After this is complete, type: fixboot
9. Type: fixmbr
10. Restart your computer, it should boot up fine.
4 ken Feb 29th, 2008 at 11:32pm

Wow, thanks tekha. That simple solution worked great for me.
5 Reggie L. Mar 2nd, 2008 at 1:49pm

Good day,
I have encountered this problem and already fixed it. Simply replace you existing cd-rom/dvd drive. Afterwards, Plug it again.

Hope this helps
6 karnan Apr 12th, 2008 at 4:06am

“Hi, I tried installing windows XP by the below steps,
1. I Inserted DVD in the drive and booted the machine,
2. I Pressed enter when it prompts “Boot from CD”
3. “inspecting computer’s hardware configuration…” appears after that
I am getting a blank screen.
Can somebody help me explaining what is the problem and how to
troubeshoot the issue….”

Note:
but I can install Fedora core 6 without issues!!!
7 crumpet Apr 13th, 2008 at 7:45am

Just had this problem found an easy solution was to boot a linux live cd and use a partition manager to erase the partition table (i didn’t care about any data on the disk - you will lose it all) and then it booted fine afterwards
8 darknightest May 8th, 2008 at 6:26am

Hey, i have a question about tehka’s fix: since my hard drive is unplugged, after i get to the blue setup screen where i can choose to run the recovery console, it tells me that it doesn’t see any hard drive plugged into my computer. i’ve tried plugging the hard drive in immediately after it goes past the “checking hardware” screen, but this didn’t help.

help?
9 SKD May 11th, 2008 at 4:00pm

Thanks Tehka!! I followed ur suggestions upto step 5, then, instead of running Recovery Console, I just selected to install Windows, and it went through the normal steps and finally done!
10 S.L.E.Y. May 14th, 2008 at 9:41pm

i HAVEN’T READ ALL THE THREAD but…here’s how i got rid of this irritable problem!
No utilty or fix this, fix that required…

If you have an old version of Win2K kickin’ around, (one from your best friend should do the trick:)) … put it in as if you would be doing an installation and basically just DELETE all the non-windows partition.

Once done, restart and use your Genuine Windows XP cd and voila!
11 Bjossi Sep 16th, 2008 at 10:25pm

I had the same problem after i tried to install Xp on the drive that Fedora 9 was on, Fedora changes the MBR and that is causing this error. Simply boot up your favourite live cd, delete all linux partitions nad your good to go
12 ajith Oct 14th, 2008 at 7:23am

Thank you tehka , It worked for me
i also had the same problem, i resolved my problem using your steps
Thank you so much
13 ajith Oct 14th, 2008 at 7:26am

Thank you tehka , It worked for me
i also had the same problem, i resolved my problem using your steps
Thank you so much
14 Leslie Oct 28th, 2008 at 5:15pm

I have a laptop so it will be too difficult to try tehka’s suggestion… Can anyone suggest a good linux distribution that’s EASY to use with a partition manager so I can do crumpet’s suggestion? It has to be really easy to use because I’m strictly a windows user
15 Ian Nov 15th, 2008 at 4:17pm

My solution: I took the disk out and plugged it into another XP PC. There, in the control panel I started “Computer Management” The disk was listed. It was easy to remove all partitions and create a new one.
16 DrCR Dec 31st, 2008 at 9:57pm

It’s a lot easier to just hide the partitions via Grub of cfdisk/fdisk.

For example, just doing grub> hide(hd0,3) hides the entire extended partition including logicals. Nice stuff! More details to follow (hopefully. sent to admin as was getting marked as spam).

DrCR