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Setup Hangs While Inspecting Hardware; How to Use NTDETECT.COM

Article ID: 103659 - View products that this article applies to.

This article was previously published under Q103659

SUMMARY

When you are starting the system from the Windows NT Setup Disk for CD-ROM Installation or for Floppy Installation, if Setup hangs at the screen saying "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration," you can use the debug version of NTDETECT.COM to determine what component of the hardware might be causing the problem. The debug version of NTDETECT.COM is located in the following:

   Windows NT 3.1  - Windows NT 3.1 CD-ROM disc
                     (SUPPORT\SUPTOOLS\I386\NTDETECT.COM)
   Windows NT 3.5  - Contact Microsoft Product Support Services (PSS)
   Windows NT 3.51 - Windows NT CD-ROM disc
           and 4.0   (SUPPORT\DEBUG\I386\NTDETECT.CHK)
                     Rename NTDETECT.CHK to NTDETECT.COM.

MORE INFORMATION

NTDETECT.COM detects and builds the hardware component lists on Intel-based (x86) computers. To use the debug version of NTDETECT.COM to determine why Windows NT Setup is hanging at the "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" message, do the following:

Use the MS-DOS DISKCOPY command to copy the contents of the Windows NT Setup disk to a formatted, blank floppy disk.
Replace the NTDETECT.COM file on the copy of the Windows NT Setup disk created in step 1 with the NTDETECT.COM file mentioned above (for the appropriate version of Windows NT).

NOTE: The debug version of NTDETECT.COM is not available on the Windows NT floppy disks.
Insert the copy of the Windows NT Setup disk you created in step 1 in drive A and restart the computer.

The debug version of NTDETECT.COM will display hardware information on the screen as it is detected. To move to the next screen, press any key. Continue until Setup hangs. The contents of the screen at the point of lockup should give you an indication of what hardware component might be causing the problem.