T22 XP installation hangs

[ChugokuOtaku]

I acquired an old T22 with a dead harddrive from a coworker

Product: ThinkPad T22 2647-8EU

Original description: PIII 900MHz (256KB), 128MB RAM, 20.0GB HDD, 14.1 XGA(1024x768) TFT LCD, 8x-2.3x DVD, Intel combo, TV out

I swapped a new harddrive into it, and tried loading XP Pro, everything goes fine up until ETA 35 minutes into loading drivers through the installation, it hangs dead, and that little progress indicator stops rolling. The harddrive indicator LED stays lit.
I've tried different copies of XP, and encountered the same thing. I suspected it might have been bad RAM or a damaged harddrive, but that proved not to be the case after I swapped out both. A friend of mine tried loading Ubuntu onto it for me, but it hangs as soon as it tries to load the kernel.

can anyone point me in the right direction?

thanx in advance!

[jdhurst]

That you tried two OS's and they both hung during install indicates the possibility the hard drive you installed has a problem. If the physical hard drive is OK, try using FDISK to delete all partition and then (with FDISK) reset the Master Boot Record (Fdisk /mbr), and try installing again. ... JDH

[Robbyrobot]

I'd agree and go one further: boot from disk and check the HDD with OnTrack or one of the brand-specific (IBM, Western Digital etc) versions before going further. That way you make sure the HDD is OK before investing more time, and if it is you can eliminate it as a possible cause if problems arise.

[ChugokuOtaku]

Thanx, I'll give that a shot this weekend, although I really doubt it, since I've tried 3 different harddrives already, and one of them was a working 7k60 Travelstar I had recently swapped out from a 700m.
The two other ones I've tried included a used 4200rpm 40gig Travelstar, and another brand new 80gig Momentus, all which yielded the same results.

[rkawakami]

Pull the MiniPCI modem/ethernet card out.

[ChugokuOtaku]

Pull the MiniPCI modem/ethernet card out.

wow... totally nailed it!
Alright, so installation went through fine after that
I put the card back into the slot after installing XP, and when it detected the Lucent modem, the system hung, so that must've been the culprit.

Would it be possible for me to somehow prevent XP's auto detection of hardware changes, and then manually install the driver for just the LAN card and skip the modem?

[jdhurst]

I was surprised at the solution. Nice call, Ray. Some of these older machines had driver problems with NIC cards, but I have not seen an OS fail because of that. This was the first instance I have heard of like this. Thanks again, ... JDH

[rkawakami]

wow... totally nailed it!

(I got lucky! That same problem also happened to me a couple of times...)

Would it be possible for me to somehow prevent XP's auto detection of hardware changes...<snip>

Searching around with Google seems to say that the conventional wisdom is to disable the Plug-n-Play service . Don't know if that would work or not. I usually just replace the MiniPCI card with one that works .

[ChugokuOtaku]

Searching around with Google seems to say that the conventional wisdom is to disable the Plug-n-Play service . Don't know if that would work or not. I usually just replace the MiniPCI card with one that works .

thanx for the info!
I went ahead and ordered a replacement

[rkawakami]

This was the first instance I have heard of like this.

Took me forever to find this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=30159

I think that this was the first time I found out that a bad MiniPCI card could hang up an OS install. After that incident I received a T23 that wouldn't even power up until the modem card was pulled. I also ran into a T2x system (can't remember what it was) which hung up during an XP install in exactly the same way as described here.

[DoCKLenG]

I am also experiencing the same problem but my screen shut of when it reach 35minutes ETA into loading drivers. Hard disk activity stops. I have replace the hard drive, memory and pull out the mini PCI card but still the same problem.