I built a computer for my friend last night/this morning, this being about my 5th build. Everything was going fine, booted up first time, all fans spinning etc etc.
I put the XP pro CD in the drive, and proceeded to format the drive (which was NOT a quick format and took AGES), and then install windows. This all went fine, and after some simple configuration we had a basic desktop. I then installed some of the chipset drivers, NIC driver and onboard sound driver from the motherboard CD, the wireless card driver, and then the latest forceware driver from the net. There were a few restarts in between this, not after every install though. The last time we had it to the desktop, I installed iTunes and a free game that was bundled with the mobo, Toca 3. I restarted after this, and that is when the problem started. Now I have heard some bad things about the starforce protection used on TOCA 3, whether this had an effect or not I dont know.
Now on every boot, windows asks me if I want to start normally, or in safe mode etc. On every option, a blue screen follows for about half a second (which is distorted and unreadable), followed by a restart. I have explored the BIOS, and everything seems to be in order. I have reverted back to default settings to no avail. I then tried to boot from the windows CD and try a repair / reinstall. However, whichever option I choose, it tells me that a HDD cannot be found!!??
The hard drive is clear as day in the BIOS, so I'm not sure whats going on. The spec is as follows:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
ASRock Conroe-Xfire mobo
2 x 512Mb Corsair DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 TwinX
256Mb Palit 7600GT
250 Gb Maxtor 7V250F0 MaXLine® III, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 9.0 ms, NCQ
NEC Labelflash DVD±RW Dual Layer
Antec NSK4400 with 380W SmartPower PSU
Any suggestions or comments are more than welcome!
I put the XP pro CD in the drive, and proceeded to format the drive (which was NOT a quick format and took AGES), and then install windows. This all went fine, and after some simple configuration we had a basic desktop. I then installed some of the chipset drivers, NIC driver and onboard sound driver from the motherboard CD, the wireless card driver, and then the latest forceware driver from the net. There were a few restarts in between this, not after every install though. The last time we had it to the desktop, I installed iTunes and a free game that was bundled with the mobo, Toca 3. I restarted after this, and that is when the problem started. Now I have heard some bad things about the starforce protection used on TOCA 3, whether this had an effect or not I dont know.
Now on every boot, windows asks me if I want to start normally, or in safe mode etc. On every option, a blue screen follows for about half a second (which is distorted and unreadable), followed by a restart. I have explored the BIOS, and everything seems to be in order. I have reverted back to default settings to no avail. I then tried to boot from the windows CD and try a repair / reinstall. However, whichever option I choose, it tells me that a HDD cannot be found!!??
The hard drive is clear as day in the BIOS, so I'm not sure whats going on. The spec is as follows:
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300
ASRock Conroe-Xfire mobo
2 x 512Mb Corsair DDR2 XMS2-5400C4 TwinX
256Mb Palit 7600GT
250 Gb Maxtor 7V250F0 MaXLine® III, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 9.0 ms, NCQ
NEC Labelflash DVD±RW Dual Layer
Antec NSK4400 with 380W SmartPower PSU
Any suggestions or comments are more than welcome!
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