What the hell has just happened to my PC..

Hedge

Hedge

Hedge

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I installed Windows 7 a few days back, all has been fine.

Ive had the system left switched on for 2 days because I was downloading steam games..

Now everything was fine when I went out last night, Windows 7 was running.

I come back this morning to find the PC is on (fans spinning), but its lifeless.

So I restart it. Bios says theres a Boot failure and tells me to go into settings reset to defaults.

So I reset the overclock, then restart the PC..

Now the pc has ignored its windows 7 install and Im back on Windows XP!, exactly how it was before I put windows 7 over the top of it.

Erm whats happened?!
 
Sounds like your overclock was unstable, and the machine crashed without powering down while you were out.

Did you install W7 on a different drive or partition to XP? If so the boot order was reset when you reset the bios. If not I haven't the foggiest, but it sounds like you need to reinstall.
 
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sounds like "Blue160" is on the money. When you reset the overclock, you must have set the defaults in the bios which has changed your boot order. Go back in and check your boot drive with windows 7 on it is set to the 1st boot device.

Your overclock must not have bee stable as mentioned. Rather than installing over XP, why not format the drive and install Windows 7 properly. There's no need for XP anymore, if there is old software you need to run, 7 has an xp mode which you can run from within it.
 
Im such a noob with pcs considering Im on this forum.

I manage some things fine, but when it screws up like this im confused. No idea how ive managed it. Ill check the boot sequence thanks
 
Buchanan I think Ill do that cheers. I thought I had in the first place, seems I didnt :(
 
Hedge said:
Buchanan I think Ill do that cheers. I thought I had in the first place, seems I didnt :(
Click to expand...

Ahh, sorry I thought it was deliberate. i'm sure you know this, but. When installing Windows 7, set your 1st boot device to cd-rom, and then boot into the windows installation.

When you get to the option, select, custom install/advanced... not upgrade.

Once you get to the stage where it's displaying all your drives/partitions. Delete all the partitions, until only 1 is showing. Then select new, and format. Continue to install Windows. This will ensure that XP and any other traces of old operating system files is totally gone.

If you have more than one hdd installed, if you use one for storage. It maybe a good idea to disconnect it from the mobo for the install, then reconnect it afterwards.

Let us know how you get on?
 
Thanks for the helpful post.

I had a mixup with drives when I was installing it and I think I installed it on the totally wrong drive Id planned to. So it looks like the one its booted from is the old Winxp drive.

I need to buy myself a new hard drive really, Im messing about with some quite dated drives now and its becoming a bit of a mess.

Would one of the Samsung f4 drives be my best bet? I have an f1 for storage at the minute. My motherboard is showing its age now though and Ive read about firmware issues on the new F4s .

Ive just altered boot priority and im back in windows 7 thanks guys.
 
Hedge said:
Would one of the Samsung f4 drives be my best bet?.
Click to expand...
No you want a fast harddrive for your boot drive like the F3's

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-081-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=940
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-082-SA&groupid=701&catid=14&subcat=1279


A Solid State Drive would be even better if you want spend the extra on buying one ;)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/productlist.php?groupid=701&catid=14&subid=910
 
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Do yourself a favour and have a look at the newish Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives,...4gb of NAND flash built in a 7200 drive, there going for a song at the moment, and with the new adaptive technology on board...I got two in raid0 and these things fly!!!
By the third boot I was down to 17 seconds from a cold start!...comes in 250,320 and 500gig flavours....I got 2x320s for under £140 delivered,...and the best bit....SATAIII!
 
Thanks for drive recommendations. Im looking at them Momentus drives now and they look pretty great.

Shame my motherboard is dated though :(
 
Buchanan0204 said:
I'd stick with a Samsung F3 personally. A lot cheaper and isn't bottlenecked by old hardware.
Click to expand...

I just ordered a 1TB one for £40

Seems like the best option, i couldnt justify spending more than double for less half the storage.

Im gonna use it as an OS boot drive. Could you tell me how to set it up best way. Is it worth partitioning it, like say 100gb for windows and the rest for Games/Movies etc etc
 
billysielu said:
Tip: when installing Windows - disconnect all the drives except the one you want to install to.
Click to expand...

I did this at the time, but like a donut I left the wrong drive plugged in and lost lots of stuff I hadnt planned to lol
 
Hedge said:
I just ordered a 1TB one for £40

Seems like the best option, i couldnt justify spending more than double for less half the storage.

Im gonna use it as an OS boot drive. Could you tell me how to set it up best way. Is it worth partitioning it, like say 100gb for windows and the rest for Games/Movies etc etc
Click to expand...

That's what I would do. It means if anything ever goes wrong with windows and you can't boot into it or whatever, your data is always safe. Also when doing a fresh install, you don't need to bother about backing up files before formatting. 1TB for £40 total bargain.

100GB seems fine. It just depends how many apps you are going to install. You can always change this later so don't put to much emphasis on the ratio.
 
billysielu said:
Interesting - I wonder if there's a standard way of labelling a drive, like a sticker or something.
Click to expand...

I had a nightmare lol. The drives have labels on but I got confused as to which one I wanted to keep and in a rush chose the wrong one haha
 
Buchanan0204 said:
That's what I would do. It means if anything ever goes wrong with windows and you can't boot into it or whatever, your data is always safe. Also when doing a fresh install, you don't need to bother about backing up files before formatting. 1TB for £40 total bargain.

100GB seems fine. It just depends how many apps you are going to install. You can always change this later so don't put to much emphasis on the ratio.
Click to expand...

Thanks for being helpful dude. Yeah I think Ill do that. Seems the best method
 
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