Thanks. I'll test them soon! The system hangs at logo screen animation. Thank you very much for the safe mode install guide but sadly it didn't help: my system hangs after \windows\system32\drivers\disk.sys was loaded. Running extensive stress test under a mini XP from CD right now. I'll leave the notebook running the whole night to see if somethings happens. If is an hardware failure is well hidden.
You might also try disabling certain hardware in the BIOS. Sometimes there is a Legacy USB option that you toggle.
Strange that is related to disk. And you tested both Legacy and AHCI and with two different HDD's I don't know internally this laptop but all you left try is to put HDD in optical bay with bay adapter or maybe you are able to fit it in place of optical drive just for test. That if optical is SATA too. Then after install put HDD back at his place. Could be some problem in SATA part but this would be visible in dmesg something like that resetting HBA,link down refering to sata etc And some cracks under chipset would increase CRC errors under HDD SMART that visible too. Maybe BIOS mess with AHCI or related disk settings,try kexec-loader maybe will work with your laptop. Can you disable Firewire?
Sorry for the late reply. Busy day. Sadly, the stress tests I made during the night, including prime95, didn't report nothing. Today I did some tests with various bios: starting from A15 I revert to A13, A12 then A10, the bios installed when I bought the notebook. With every version I tried to install Windows 7 64bit and 32bit (DVD/USB), my Vista (DVD) and Windows XP (CD/USB). I disabled all the periferals enabled on bios: USB legacy (when not needed) and all the ports, firewire, multi card reader, expresscard, bluetooth, lan and wifi. In all cases, exept for XP I started the installation following the tip of Gabiz_ro. The system hangs always on the same damn disk.sys. Then I tried the 3-in-1 bios gently prepared by tqhoang bt again I had the same demotivating result (and computrace still is present and not modificable). @Gabiz_ro,: I can't connect the disk on the dvd bay, is a proprietary SATA connector. I've already disassembled my notebook twice to make a test with the DVD disconnected. There are no downlink error on dmesg, nor SMART error on disk report. Could you explain what you would like to test using kexec loader? F. EDIT: Forgot to say I tested AHCI/ATA too...
kexec will load and re-enumerate all devices,expose them to setup program. There is something really wrong,maybe not disk.sys is the problem but next file,something related to ACPI If you try and start setup without HDD attached,still hangs or setup continues and complain no hdd detected?
Kexec-loader did not see my CD, it sees my usb but was unable to boot from them... Probably is not well configured even if I loaded the sata and ntfs module, vfat is embedded. The manual did not help much but seems this loader is oriented to the linux side, not windows. Without the HDD the W7 install hangs on the same point. Anyway, I don't know exactly how, but I manage to install Window XP. Problem is that it starts just on safe mode and sometimes in debugging mode. With the last one I was able to install all the drivers I need for my hardware. It's not the solution but it's a step forward even if the system is sill unusable. ACPI could be the guilty, seems that XP is not able to handle well shoutdown and reboot: the system always hangs. chkdsk /r did not help... Here is the last log I found: hXXp://pastebin.com/8qPi1xCw This week I'll do a test with a celeron mobile cpu, just to remove another question mark out of my list. I smell the scent of a new motherboard...
Try this for XP During text portion of setup when message Press F6 for drivers appears hit F5 instead or F7 F7 will change something without user choice F5 will ask you to select machine type or something like that Do a google search for more info,I'm on the phone right now so a little problem to search and provide more info.
And we have a bulls-eye! Gabiz_ro, thanks to point me out to those options, here's what I discovered: Install XP with F5 or F7 results on a system hang during text install, suggesting an ACPI issues; The event log on windows show multiples ACPIEC errors, suggesting again ACPI issues; Changing the type of ACPI from "ACPI multiprocessor" to "Standard PC" on System propriety let the system boot fine but is definitely unstable, suggesting again a ACPI issue. A reflow or a replace of the motherboard is needed, today when I turn on my note I clearly seen some bands across my screen for an half second. Since I did't find a good DIY that let me reflow he motherbosrd without buying stuff I prefer to replace my board on my next trip to the USA. For now I continue using Linux and a VM till I can. I think we can declare close this case. F.