Windows help - very very hard time installing windows

the computer in question blew its psu a while back and has been out of service for id say 3 months. finally brought it back last night, went out and bought a psu. since then, problem after problem after problem... im using a custom install disk (fully automated and some things stripped out) and its been used before, worked fine on this current computer. so anyway. i go to install and the cd wouldnt boot. for some reason the drive in it wouldnt boot from a cdr, but my original xp disk worked fine. so i ended up switching out that cd drive with the one currently in my new system, and i was able to boot off the cdr. got through the formatting and copying stage of install fine, and it went to reboot to start the install, but instead it said "Error loading operating system" - and it wont boot into setup... this is extremely frustrating and i really must get this system up, so what are your folk's suggestions? as far as the things i can think of,

a) the hard drive worked flawlessly for the time i used it in this computer (just took it out yesterday)
b) the disk is okay because ive used it to install previously, and i even get the same problem using the actual xp disk i have
c) the specs are okay, amd 650 with 256mb of ram

 

Well you could try swapping the HD out and try installing windows on it with your other system, then popping it back into the system thats giving you problems to see if it will boot (Dunno if you will have driver problems doing this, but its an idea). If you had the HD in there when the PSU blew, it could of borked up the HD as well (Maybe even the cd-rom that wasnt working correctly?).

 

the way your psu died makes a difference when troubleshooting. Did it short out or just stop working? If it shorted out was there sparks did it catch fire? it is possible it damaged the motherboard power connector. unfortunately i know of no way to check that. your best bet is to start swapping parts with a working pc to eliminate other possibilities. with a psu dieng it can hurt all kinds of hardware. good luck

 

it just stopped working, apparently from dust, no shorting that i can see (the computer was my moms, kept in the cubby of a desk, the kind with the closing doors, etc (i always tell her not to keep it in there)) and the hard drive wasnt in that computer when it went. ill try doing the swap hd and install, as ive been told to try that by a few others

 

every psu death i have personally seen took out the mobo with it - check for scorching around the atx connector and around the mosfets, and also look for bulging caps - they should be flat on top.

 

did all that already, im fairly positive theres nothing wrong with the mobo. everything checks okay on POST. i suppose the only problem i might have is an issue somewhere with the hard drisk (which is incomprehensible to me, but its the only logical thing i can think of, aside from ghosts.)

damn ghosts.

 

Aye, I had a psu that worked fine one day, completely dead the next. Direct replacement worked fine.

I'd suggest you either remaster the custom xp cd or just use the original. I've had problems using slipstream xp cd's I've made (XP cd with SP2 built in) and once I'd burned a fresh cd it installed fine. It'd get so far into the install and then usually at the same place it'd stop with an error, just when it'd start to install Windows proper once it's copied over all the files and done a reboot.

 

well its not an error, this computer jsut wont boot off the hard drive anymore it seems. i installed xp from this computer onto it then put it on there and it still wont boot off it, so... i dont know
i really want this darn thing to work, i spent 20$ i didnt necessarily have on this power supply.
any ideas whats wrong?
the hard drive will boot in this computer fine, but thats probably because its not the primary hard drive. oh i jsut dont know. the whole situation makes me wanna cry :'(

 

Try burning off a bootable cd with memtest (or dl and burn ultimate boot cd) and give it a run to see if any memory errors come up.

 

oka did ubcd, im not finding anything wrong. hard drive is fine, memory is fine, everything checks >:/ this is so nerve racking

 

What graphics and sound are you using? PCI/AGP cards or built in? Either or, see if you can swap/disable and use a different one.

 

agp graphics, inbuilt sound, ive tried swapping graphics with pci but i really dont see how that can be the problem