Does anyone know why laptop stops installin in middle of installing windows. I have a Toshiba Satellite A65-s1762 got it with a blank harddrive, it had originally had win xp home on it but like i said no operating system, it goes through everything fine for like 5 minutes where setup is checking system when it finally gets done it shows "setup installing windows and thats it cd rom stops no lights showin anything working from then on it like it froze but i can still hit F3 to exit and restart, oh yeah since theres no operating system on harddrive I'm installing win XP pro if this helps

Try -

-See if you have any rare/exotice hardware that Windows cannot recognise and needs drivers for (storage devices)
-Unplug all USB/Firewire/Expansion cards until windows install has finished
-Update the system BIOS (if available)
-Update the optical drive firmware (if available)

What "disk" are you installing off? Is it a retail CD, a burnt copy, or a pirated version that may be corrupt? Is the CD scratched or rotting?

If its a copied/pirated/burnt disk, try borrowing a retail pressed disk from a friend and see if that works.

Also, in case you are using a "customised" / "nlited" / "hfslip+" / "SP2/3 slipstreamed" disk, try using the XP RTM version, to check if the reason setup hangs is because of a corrupt or missing file.

i tried the retail and a burnt copy they both do the same thing, I'm wondering if it could be a bad hard drive but i don't know. I tried unplugging expansion cards but it does the same

Sorry to be the harbinger of doom, bt the last time this happened to me, it ended up being a bad board. . . and sometimes memory does that, too.

Sometimes, though you just have to let it stay at that screen overnight or something like that.

One more thing. . . any way you can mount that drive in a running desktop and try, at the very least, to format it? Try to listen to an clicking or clunking, too.

i don't know if this helps but i just noticed when it turns on the toshiba screen doesn't look right but when u go to the format part where theres a blue screen everything looks fine

sound like you have a hardware problem. should get it checked out by a tech, and explain your windows install problems to them.