# Hangs at "Registering components"



## kell_belle (Mar 13, 2006)

My computer is old and has been pieced together with used parts from other units. It's worked great for 3 years. Last weekend it got a virus, don't know which kind, wouldn't do anything. I tried to just re-install win2k pro, but it kept hanging at the "Registering components" screen during set up. Hubby eventually slaved my hard drive to his and was able to clear everything (we thought). He loaded Windows, it worked OK but was really slow. Last night it was taking forever to boot up, so he suggested I use the windows disc to repair the installation. Now I'm stuck on registering components again. Anyone know how I can get past this or, barring that, what we can do so this doesn't happen again? We have a new baby, so getting a new unit or even taking this one to be fixed is absolutely not in the budget. I appreciate any help!


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## rgb3 (Jul 11, 2009)

kell_belle said:


> My computer is old and has been pieced together with used parts from other units. It's worked great for 3 years. Last weekend it got a virus, don't know which kind, wouldn't do anything. I tried to just re-install win2k pro, but it kept hanging at the "Registering components" screen during set up. Hubby eventually slaved my hard drive to his and was able to clear everything (we thought). He loaded Windows, it worked OK but was really slow. Last night it was taking forever to boot up, so he suggested I use the windows disc to repair the installation. Now I'm stuck on registering components again. Anyone know how I can get past this or, barring that, what we can do so this doesn't happen again? We have a new baby, so getting a new unit or even taking this one to be fixed is absolutely not in the budget. I appreciate any help!


I've been fighting an incredibly similar situation for a solid week... My laptop broke and I cobbled together a PC from some older systems here at the house... in my cobbling I went ahead and threw in an extra stick of DDR RAM... Then while searching this forum in desperation (after a week of trying to install everything from XP to 2000 to a bootleg Vista_XP and hanging at the end every single time I saw a suggestion that blew me away... I mean how would someone know something like this anyway? A one line reply to this same problem from another forum member said: "Try installing using less RAM." It sounded so unrelated, yet was so humbly suggested... I had to try it! I pulled one stick of RAM out and tried again... Worked 1st try, no problem! 
That guy has to be a computer engineer or something... That or he runs around imaging new machines all day at Microsoft...
Give it a shot! Good Luck... I really feel your pain. I don't have the family and baby issues... but I've been divorced, unemployed, broke, and clinging desperately to my computers for 6 months now. I was working on getting this old PC working for about 150 hours... and suffering extreme anxiety to the point of rage and hyperventalation... 
I would NEVER have thought to pull some RAM.
Hope it works for you.

RG Brewster... Certified Computer Menace and software fighter.:wave:


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