HELP - I can't boot.

Drunkenmassacre

Drunkenmassacre

Drunkenmassacre

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9 Jul 2009
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Moray, Scotland
Hi Guys,

I always seem to be coming in here for help... sorry about that.
I have a computer thats been boxed up for a while, come to use it today and can't get it to boot. I tried safe mode and booting from my windows 7 disk, but neither worked.
The spec is:

Case - Silverstone grandia gd05 3 x120mm & 2 x 80mm fans, runs nice and quite. Takes full size expansion cards
CPU - AMD Athlon II x4 630 2.8ghz quad core with Phenom II heatpipe cooler
Board - Asus M4A78LT-M 760G (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard (No backplate)
MEM - 4GB DDR3 1333mhz
GPU - XFX AMD HD 6450 1GB fanless with HDMi, DVi, VGA & 3D support
HDD - 60GB 2.5" sata system drive & 1TB Sata Media Drive
PSU - Corsair 430W
DVD - Samsung 22x sata DVD R/W
Software - Windows 7 Home premium & XBMC installed Fully featured media centre software

I have no ideas what to do. The message I keep getting tells me there isn't enough memory to create a ramdisc device... wth that is i dont know.

Anyone with an ounce of brain could probably sort this out - hence where I am lacking.
 
OK, no-one seems to know. Next question is: Is something fubar'd that I need to replace, and if so, what?

Like I said, its a computer thats been sat in a box, gone from working to not. Can't anyone help?
 
I've tried all variations of RAM in the machine, to no avail. I had also read that it could be a faulty sata cable, so changed that but again no effect. I'm getting really annoyed at this now, I can't get into windows at all
 
it starts with 'Windows recovery error' giving me the message-
'Windows has failed to start. A recent hardware or software change could be the cause.' It then gives me the option to Launch Startup Repair or start windows normally.
Choosing Startup Repair takes you to Windows Boot Manager, it tells ame again windows has failed to start and to fix the problem:
Insert your windows instaation disc and restart your computer.
Choose language settings and click next
Click repair your computer.

Status: 0xc0000017
Info: Ramdisk device creation failed due to insufficient memory


Also, when trying to load in safe mode, it loads Classpnp.sys file, but will then restart
 
On your windows disc it should have a memory test. Have you tried running that? Should be able run this of the CD in the recovery console.
 
After much googling I can not find anything that points to one fault, every item in Google points to something different!

your boot drive is it an ssd? I'm wondering if its a corruption issue that your problem and not your ram.
 
Dont know why it's mentioned ramdisk, thats a virtual hard drive created using the RAM. Did you have anything like that?

If the RAM passes the windows ram test though then it should be fine.
This problem could be caused by a BIOS setting. Go into the BIOS (usually by hitting DEL key on boot up but could be a F key depending on your motherboard) and go on "Load BIOS defaults" or whatever similar option it has. Then save and exit.

If that dont work i would just reinstall windows. If theres something you need on windows though then connect another hard drive, install to that drive, then copy over the files from the old drive you want saved.
 
sorry for the thread revival but i haven't been around to sort this out. So far i have tried booting with seperate sticks of RAM but that didn't work. I've used the windows memory test and memtest to see if that was the issue but nothing. i've added another hard drive with xp on it to see if that would load, but that has the same issues. i can boot into safe mode on the xp drive but not as a normal boot- does this point to anything? i would reinstall windows 7, but the ramdisk error keeps appearing so i can't yet.

anyone got any ideas?
 
If you've taken the XP hard drive out of another machine, then put it in to this PC then it's pretty normal for XP to not boot unless it's in safe mode, because the drivers for the previous PC cause trouble and cant be loaded. So this is normal.
Being as XP still starts in safe mode and works ok then you can probably say the hardware is ok - apart from the graphics card anyway because in safe mode it wont use that at all.

When you try installing Win 7 what happens? and do you boot from the Win 7 DVD? You need to set the CD/DVD drive as the first boot device in the BIOS to do this. If you've done that and it still has the error before you can even boot from the DVD then it could be a BIOS thing. So have you tried resetting the BIOS to defaults as said before?
 
Bios is set to defaults, 1 stick of ram is in.
When i try and boot from the dvd, that's when i get the ramdisk error. i'm going to try and put the windows 7 hdd in another computer and wipe it on there and try installing windows again. can you see any issues with that?
 
what the temperature of the CPU in the BIOS?

I would now be unplugging everything bar keyboard and mouse have one hard drive and one stick of ram a DVD drive and monitor. If your still getting problems I would be stripping the whole thing down and doing a complete rebuild, Especially re seating the heatsink with fresh thermal paste!
 
If it boots in to safe mode on XP and runs ok when you actually do stuff then it wont be overheating. Because in order to be overheating so much that it cant even start booting windows 7 then it would have to be seriously hot, so hot that XP wouldn't boot either. So you can rule out overheating.

It's looking like the hard drive is the problem, or the windows 7 install has gotten corrupted. So yeah i'd format it in another machine, and if that dont work i'd get a new hard drive or try using another to install win 7.
 
Ok so.I've rebuilt the machine and formatted the drive. I've connected just one stick of ram and removed the graphics card. the bios is set to default and its been told to boot from dvd to reinstall windows. However, the 'windows failed to start' error is still occurring and I can't install. Memtest says the ram passed, as did the windows memory test. Where can i go from here?
 
Over clocked? Tested the hard drive with the manufactures software?

Only other thing to try is a new/borowed motherboard!
 
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