Black Screen on Windows Installation
 

I've probably installed Windows XP a hundred times, so I am pretty aware of how the process works. Put in the disk, and boot up, press any key to boot from disk, blue screen with installation, blah, blah, blah. However, my spare rig seems to get stuck somewhere between the "Press any key to boot from disk" and the blue screen. The monitor writes out "detecting hardware configurations" and it just goes blank afterwards. Just empty, blackness. And nothing happens, the DVD-ROM drive isn't spinning up or anything. Just nothing, no blue screen like it's supposed to. I've tried everything now. It's not the disc, it's not the DVD-ROM drive, I've even reset the CMOS to default settings. Anyone know why this might be happening? I've installed Windows on this computer before, it's strange this is happening now...

If you have installed XP hundreds of time, you might have worn out the install disk. Just kidding :D

Assuming BIOS screen comes up and all settings are correct, you might try getting a boot CD in DOS to find out if the hardware is in good order. Western Digital has HDD diagnostic booted from CD.

Hmm, what do you think might be the problem? I had windows running on it, then I switched out my hard drive to a 160gb seagate. Afterwards I ran Linux (Fedora) on it for a week or so, and now I want to install windows and dual boot. Could it be the hard drive? But then wouldn't the problem occur when windows is actually trying to install itself? I mean up until then it should be all run live from the windows disk.

What do you main "run live"?

run direct of the disk?

and linux is still working ? otherwise it could be faulty memory or cpu (or even graphics card or monitor).

Yes, I mean run off the disk.

And yes, Linux is still working (well not anymore, I deleted the Linux partitions). I also tried using the built in GPU for the motherboard and got the same results.

I did a bit of diagnosing, here are my results:

-The Computer does not seem to want to boot from the disc when I have the hard drive plugged in as well, no matter what I tell it in the BIOS
-When the Hard drive is unplugged, the computer will boot from the disc. I can even plug the hard drive back in later and intsall windows on it, but it results in an error about misconfigured hardware when I first boot from the hard drive after installation.
-Windows XP x64 disc boots even when the hard drive is plugged in while the x86 version does not...

Sounds very strange to me...especially the last one. It's clear that the computer isn't reading the disc when the hard drive is plugged in. I don't see the DVD-ROM's LED light being active, but it is when I have the hard drive unplugged or when the x64 Windows version is being booted.

Well I don't know what happend but I installed the x64 version and then I was able to boot from the x86 disc and install that 0_o... Maybe GRUB had something to do with this? It was still installed on the hard drive even though I removed Fedora Core.

since the setup of Windows hung during HDD access, most likely a corrupt/faulty/unknown boot handler