So I assembled my new build (well, major upgrade...) and all was going well - almost too well 
Ran Memtest and got no errors, even with tighter timings than spec. Ran Prime95 for 2 hours with no errors. 3DMark also fine. Everything perfect. Then I realised I had made too minor errors. Firstly, I had installed the exhaust fan the wrong way, so it was a suckin' instead of a blowin'
Also, I had plugged the hard disk activity LED in the wrong way also, so that wasn't working. No problem.....took the side panel off and fixed both problems. Booted up, Oblivion DVD in hand, ready to enjoy my new system.
Oh. "Windows didn't load properly last time, blah, blah". Restarted in safe mode just in case. "Windows didn't load properly last time....". Erm, reset, restore BIOS to defaults, "Windows didn't load properly....."
Basically, I couldn't get Windows to boot at all. Ran Windows setup CD, which crashed with some error about my HD not being compatible, or some such. Ran HD diagnostic program from a boot disk - comes back fine. Finally got into Windows setup by pressing F7, and did a reapir install. Windows now loads fine, but it was throwing errors about SATA drive not being compatible - even tho my disk is IDE.....and now I have a bunch of junk in my device manager - 3 primary IDE chans, 3 secondary chans, and 3 PCI IDE chans. The machine seems fine, but still......I'm a bit confused. At a guess, somehow my HD boot files got nuked.
All this happened just because I plugged the HD activity LED in the correct way? Or was that just coincidence? My system is stable, so I'm at a bit of a loss with this one.
X2 3800, Biostar AM2 mobo, 2GB G.Skill, GF7900GS, X-FI, 80GB IDE drive, X-Clio 460W Stablepower, WinXP pro.
Ran Memtest and got no errors, even with tighter timings than spec. Ran Prime95 for 2 hours with no errors. 3DMark also fine. Everything perfect. Then I realised I had made too minor errors. Firstly, I had installed the exhaust fan the wrong way, so it was a suckin' instead of a blowin'
Also, I had plugged the hard disk activity LED in the wrong way also, so that wasn't working. No problem.....took the side panel off and fixed both problems. Booted up, Oblivion DVD in hand, ready to enjoy my new system.Oh. "Windows didn't load properly last time, blah, blah". Restarted in safe mode just in case. "Windows didn't load properly last time....". Erm, reset, restore BIOS to defaults, "Windows didn't load properly....."
Basically, I couldn't get Windows to boot at all. Ran Windows setup CD, which crashed with some error about my HD not being compatible, or some such. Ran HD diagnostic program from a boot disk - comes back fine. Finally got into Windows setup by pressing F7, and did a reapir install. Windows now loads fine, but it was throwing errors about SATA drive not being compatible - even tho my disk is IDE.....and now I have a bunch of junk in my device manager - 3 primary IDE chans, 3 secondary chans, and 3 PCI IDE chans. The machine seems fine, but still......I'm a bit confused. At a guess, somehow my HD boot files got nuked.All this happened just because I plugged the HD activity LED in the correct way? Or was that just coincidence? My system is stable, so I'm at a bit of a loss with this one.
X2 3800, Biostar AM2 mobo, 2GB G.Skill, GF7900GS, X-FI, 80GB IDE drive, X-Clio 460W Stablepower, WinXP pro.
