New build major issue! please help still not resolved

Ste59w

Ste59w

Ste59w

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25 Jul 2009
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Hi guys,

New build for a friend just will not load into windows 7. Have spent a good couple of nights on it now and have no clue where to go from here.

Spec is : Gigabyte UD3 motherboard, i5, 4 gig geil budget ram, and a 5570 ati card.

Hard drive is a kingston 64gb SSD which i have let him have as i got a new one recently.

Windows install cd is genuine 64gb version, loads up fine, installs fine, ticks all the boxes and then says Windows needs to restart to complete installation. Upon restarting the pc gets to the windows logo on the black screen and then simply restarts. Does it everytime. Wont load in safe mode as it needs to carry on the installation.

As the hard drive was from my pc, i have tried using the install hard drive options in the windows setup, to delete the drive completely, so its just blank and then installed windows from there. I have tried formatting the drive also. Windows creates the 100mb system file during the installation, and if i boot from cd after it cocks up i can see it has installed as the space is used. It just will not boot to windows!!

I have checked the ram, no errors were found, removed the graphics card and it still restarts, havn't touched the BIOS except changing to ACHI mode but have tried IDE.

Tried disabling the option to auto restart on crash and there is no blue screen, it just restarts.

Have tried upping memory voltage to 1.6 as it was at 1.5 but no change.

No BIOS errors or beeps, CPU temps are low.

Effectively its all brand new hardware, except the SSD which has been wiped and formatted so its like new. I tried it on an old normal HD that was again from my pc with same issues.

Please help as i've got no clue at all now :( Had to persuade my friend to buy parts from here instead of pre-built so need to get this sorted really.

Cheers guys
 
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managed to speak to someone who has advised me that after trying all of the above there is no reason why it should not boot to windows.

I've ruled out memory, graphics card, hard drive leaving the cpu and the motherboard.

He thinks its unlikely to be the cpu as they are fully tested before being shipped unlike motherboards.

So more than likely a fault board, as he has also had the same issue where windows installed and then would not load.

Any other suggestions before we RMA it?
 
try a different HDD, could be that the mobo or windows just doesnt like it.

i assume that the install disc you are using is a legitimate copy so there should not be any problems there.

before you go through the RMA try doing a fresh build. so take it all apart and try again. i would also suggest try booting it without additional hardware such as the dvd drive or PCI sound card. basically try and boot with the minimum amount of hardware
 
As i said ive tried 2 hard drives - a SSD and a normal HD. Both were deleted and formatted on the pc using the windows installation cd (as they were from my old pc) and then windows was installed successfully on both drives. It then failed to boot on both drives.

I need the dvd drive in to load the windows cd to do the install? Maybe rebuilding it again could help, what could have gone wrong though that i might be able to see by rebuilding? any ideas? surely if it was a build mistake i wouldnt be able to get as far as to install windows?
 
once the installation is complete you should be able to remove the drive and give it a go.
normally, yes, if there was a build error it would normally not install. however computers can have a life of their own.

but if you are no longer able to find faults with all the hardware except the mobo then its time to RMA it
 
one thing i forgot to mention in post which i have just remembered.

When i installed windows and then get the restarting problem, i try to boot from the cd to delete the partition and try again but it will once again restart.
When i boot from cd it loads the windows files with the white loading bar on the black screen which takes a min or so, then goes onto the windows logo with black screen and restarts. (same place as when im trying to boot into windows)

This only seems to happen when a hard drive with windows installed on it is plugged in. When the hard drives are blank or unplugged the pc does not restart at that point and will let me load the windows installation cd.

I have however been told this could still point to faulty MB?
 
Nope dont have another version of windows to try, could use the 32bit disk i guess to try, but i installed on my pc a few weeks ago with no issues at all using the same disk.
 
Shouldnt make a difference as we've not got to the point where you put the product key in yet, so doubt theres any other method of checking if its being used by another pc.

Plan was to let him use it for the 30 day trial and then he buys his own version after getting paid, can someone let me know if we cannot do this?
 
I had a similar problem with my last build.

I ended up both completely rebuilding the machine ( all out all in )

and while I was doing that, I created a unetbooting usb and installed off of that.

Im not sure if it was a hardware of software issue as I deployed both changes in the same run ( was in a hurry not debugging mode )

So if you are really stuck, try installing off a live usb. As well as giving everything at least a reseat if not a full rebuild.

Hope this helps/
 
A faulty cd drive could do this. Installing from usb is one way to check, otherwise swapping the drive out. It's certainly less drastic than rma'ing a motherboard.

Stripping it apart and trying again does occasionally seem to help.

CPUs can be faulty, but it would be unlikely considering the symptoms. Dodgy ram could do this, as could a faulty motherboard. Easiest to check is the optical drive, followed by trying it with some other ram. The board and the ram may just dislike each other, occasionally psu's and motherboards don't get on either.

Fickle beasts computers. Best of luck

edit: Check that the bios is set to IDE mode too, not AHCI
 
But would that not throw a " no boot device " error instead of just a nothing.

But I guess it could be doing something, so worth a shot. Were sort of clutching at straws a bit now though.

pcAnywhere said:
Make sure the 'OS' HDD is in the first Sata port on the mobo. Only have the OS HDD installed when you do the win 7 install & add the extra drive later
Click to expand...
 
Have you tried installing windows with only 1 stick of ram? (have you got the ram in the correct slots?).

You could also try installing windows on your computer, then transfer the hdd to the new build, just to see if it works. (i believe others have done this before and it worked for them).
 
DSN said:
But would that not throw a " no boot device " error instead of just a nothing.

But I guess it could be doing something, so worth a shot. Were sort of clutching at straws a bit now though.
Click to expand...

Huh?

Install the SSD in the first Sata port (probably called Sata_0), install the optical drive on another sata port. Set drive priority to the optical and then install Windows 7 on to the SSD drive. If the Windows install goes OK then add the second HDD to a sata port.

Basicly, don't have 2 HDDs installed in the system when you try to install Windows..
 
thanks for all the suggestions.

Gonna try it with just 1 stick of ram, havnt got any other ram to use to test as my ram isnt compatible.

Gonna try swapping out the optical drive with one from my pc.

Gonna try using the 32bit install disk just incase its the disk.

Also gonna try installing windows while the SSD is in my pc then transfering, but wouldnt this be a problem with totally different hardware?

If i set the boot priority to the cd rom as you suggested Pcanywhere, wouldnt that just cause it to load from the cd when it restarts after installation? I need the hard drive as first boot priority surely? I've also got the SSd in sata_0 and the optical drive in sata_1, nothing else connected.

Can someone explain how i make a usb bootable thing? i think the only usb drive i have is like 2gig? is that enough?

If all this fails i guess its time to RMA the board!
 
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