BSOD while installing Windows XP Pro!

vipergrm · 30 Jul 2007 at 23:22

Hi guys,

I cannot get XP Pro installed on a new machine. The machine boots OK and it picks up everything it should in the BIOS, but after the Windows XP setup files load I get a blue screen of death. It seems to keep making reference to the hard drive, saying that I need to remove any faulty drivers etc. The two hard drives I am using are brand new Samsung 320GB SATAII drives. I have tried each drive seperately and they both do the same thing. I have also disconnected everything from the board and tried updating the BIOS to the latest version, all with no result. Is there anything I have missed? System spec as follows:

Core 2 Duo E6450 CPU
Corsair 2GB PC5300 DDR2 value RAM
x2 Samsung HD321KJ 320GB SATAII hard drives
Point Of View Geforce 8500 graphics
NEC 18x DVD-R/RW drive
Winpower 400w PSU

I would really appreciate any suggestions. Thanks!

vipergrm · 31 Jul 2007 at 13:28

Don't you normally get a message like ' no hard drives detected'? does this actually cause it to blue screen? I have never seen this happen before,

Thanks mate

vipergrm · 1 Aug 2007 at 21:58

Fantastic guys! Thanks a lot for your help. Ironically, I am now having the same problem with my own PC. Spec is showing below. This time, when I install the drivers by pressing F6, it picks up all my drives fine, but just when I enter the XP gui after a restart, I get a blue screen of death again. Could this be that the drivers are corrupted or perhaps not the right ones? Thanks for the great help guys!

vipergrm · 6 Aug 2007 at 15:49

Thanks Captain Fizz

. That's what I'll do next

vipergrm · 8 Aug 2007 at 19:07

Yes, I am indeed using SP2 with Windows XP. Thanks, I think it's sorted now

vipergrm · 10 Aug 2007 at 12:40

Guys, I tell a lie. It is not sorted! I am still getting a blue screen when installing the drivers. It's an Intel RAID controller. As soon as I press F6 and install the drivers, Windows picks it up but I can get no further. Has anyone had experience with installing XP on a Gigabyte P35-DS3R motherboard? If so, what drivers did you use?

Thanks!

vipergrm · 11 Aug 2007 at 02:49

Thanks MarcLister,

Right, the problem is sorted. Unbelievably, one of my hard drives was causing the issue. It was quite difficult to find out as it was one of my mirrored RAID drives. If I plugged it in, Windows would blue screen when installing. Also, when I successfully installed Vista, my system took almost 10 minutes to boot. After much experimenting, I disconnected each of my mirrored drives to find out if there was a problem. When I disconnected the suspected faulty drive my system worked no problems and booted very quickly. I am really disappointed with the Hitachi Deskstar drives I have. This is the fourth failure since end of March. To me, that is simply not good enough. Another RMA.

Thanks for all the support guys. Really appreciate it