Not quite sure which forum this belongs in...and this will also be long...
OK, twice now my new build (despite being totally stable after hours in Prime, Memtest, etc) will totally mess up. This time I was playing CoH and accidently hit the power-off button on the keyboard. When it restarted it said Windows hadn't started up properly and did I want to start in safe mode or regular, etc, etc. Hit safe mode, and instead of Windows loading it just resets the machine and goes back to the Windows didn't start up properly again. Hit any of the options and it just resets the PC and goes back to this screen again - so I'm stuck in a loop. The only way to get Windows back is to run the setup and do a repair install. This is where the real fun starts.....
Windows Setup starts, then throws a BSOD saying the machine doesn't comply with some standard or other (can't rem the exact message) which seems to be related to the hard drive - it says to press F7 during the setup. So restart the setup and press F7, and this time it works (it only throws this message once the Windows install has been damaged - when I first installed the OS it was fine, so I think it's a symptom of the screw-up rather than something genuinelly wrong with the hardware). Anyway, run the repair and Windows works fine again - apart from two problems.
1.) The machine will no longer showdown properly. It does it the old fashioned way - goes through the shutdown procedure and then tells me "it is now safe to turn off your computer", and I have to actually press the power button to shut it off.....like in the "old days". Also, the standby button is greyed out in the shutdown/restart window.
2.) The nVidia IDE drivers (it's an IDE drive btw...) won't work. It says it installs them, but when you go to device manager it says it's just using the built-in Microsoft drivers. I've tried different nVidia drivers, manually updated them, all the usual stuff, but they won't take. This is probably related to the error during the setup when I have to press F7. It says the drive is running in the correct DMA modes, etc, so it's not a major problem - just annoying.
As I say, this is the second time it's done this. The first time I actually had to re-format and re-install because games would just BSOD every few mins. This time, after the repair install, it seems stable....so far. I'm just testing now, but I won't be happy if I end up having to re-format again
So, why does it screw up my Windows install in the first place? The machine is basically 100% stable when running
Next, why does the Windows setup say my machine isn't compatible with something and force me to load some default hard drive thing, which in turn confuses the nVidia drivers? Is there a way to fix this? And how can I fix the shutdown problem - I found some related stuff on the MS site, but none of it seems to work in my case.
Any help mucho appreciated!
EDIT: I'm gonna try updating the BIOS - but I need to dig out a floppy drive first...
OK, twice now my new build (despite being totally stable after hours in Prime, Memtest, etc) will totally mess up. This time I was playing CoH and accidently hit the power-off button on the keyboard. When it restarted it said Windows hadn't started up properly and did I want to start in safe mode or regular, etc, etc. Hit safe mode, and instead of Windows loading it just resets the machine and goes back to the Windows didn't start up properly again. Hit any of the options and it just resets the PC and goes back to this screen again - so I'm stuck in a loop. The only way to get Windows back is to run the setup and do a repair install. This is where the real fun starts.....
Windows Setup starts, then throws a BSOD saying the machine doesn't comply with some standard or other (can't rem the exact message) which seems to be related to the hard drive - it says to press F7 during the setup. So restart the setup and press F7, and this time it works (it only throws this message once the Windows install has been damaged - when I first installed the OS it was fine, so I think it's a symptom of the screw-up rather than something genuinelly wrong with the hardware). Anyway, run the repair and Windows works fine again - apart from two problems.
1.) The machine will no longer showdown properly. It does it the old fashioned way - goes through the shutdown procedure and then tells me "it is now safe to turn off your computer", and I have to actually press the power button to shut it off.....like in the "old days". Also, the standby button is greyed out in the shutdown/restart window.
2.) The nVidia IDE drivers (it's an IDE drive btw...) won't work. It says it installs them, but when you go to device manager it says it's just using the built-in Microsoft drivers. I've tried different nVidia drivers, manually updated them, all the usual stuff, but they won't take. This is probably related to the error during the setup when I have to press F7. It says the drive is running in the correct DMA modes, etc, so it's not a major problem - just annoying.
As I say, this is the second time it's done this. The first time I actually had to re-format and re-install because games would just BSOD every few mins. This time, after the repair install, it seems stable....so far. I'm just testing now, but I won't be happy if I end up having to re-format again
So, why does it screw up my Windows install in the first place? The machine is basically 100% stable when running
Next, why does the Windows setup say my machine isn't compatible with something and force me to load some default hard drive thing, which in turn confuses the nVidia drivers? Is there a way to fix this? And how can I fix the shutdown problem - I found some related stuff on the MS site, but none of it seems to work in my case.Any help mucho appreciated!
EDIT: I'm gonna try updating the BIOS - but I need to dig out a floppy drive first...
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