Please help- PC not booting whatsoever!

claypigeon101 · 17 Dec 2012 at 03:21

Hi guys, this isn't as tediously vague as it sounds, honest!

My PC has only booted once since I changed the motherboard.
I only have a Macbook Pro at home here, and my Vista system has a freshly formatted hard drive but it doesn't want to play!

On changing the motherboard the PC wouldn't boot so I reformatted the disk using Mac disk utility first to 'free space', then from empty I set it to '1 partition- FAT' and neither of those booted in the PC.
I then used my Win7 PC (isn't at home with me) to reformat the drive to NTFS. Stuck it back in, boot and splash screen, Windows Vista disc in and it started up.

(sorry for the tedious story) I got as far as the Win Vista install screen, choose which disk to install to, wouldn't let me even when I tried deleting the previous partition I created using my other PC and creating a new partition in the Win vista install menu. It was saying something about it having GPT partition, or similar. Never came across that before, I wondered if it was because at one point I formatted the drive on Mac?

Anyway I whipped the drive out again, downloaded Paragon for Mac and reformatted the drive AGAIN to NTFS. Now the PC goes back to not booting again! Doesn't even reach the splash screen, at least it reached the splash when I formatted the drive using my Win PC.

Am I missing something?! I'm pretty sure my hardware is sound as an hour ago I was almost installing windows if it wasn't for this GPT error!

Can anybody shed some light? This is my old off the shelf system that I'm giving to my family to use and I can't for the life of me get the thing to work right.. I don't have another Windows PC in this house so I've been trying to use my Mac to format NTFS as I've explained and maybe that's fudging something up.

APOLOGIES for the boring explanation but I thought it best to give you the whole picture!
Can anybody help please?

thank you!!

EDIT: As a last attempt I also reformatted the drive with 1 partition, NTFS, and chose Master Boot Record in the disk utility options. Still nothing. :'(

Rannoch · 17 Dec 2012 at 03:36

Doesn't the Vista disk have the option to format the hard disk for you?

Rannoch · 17 Dec 2012 at 03:41

Ignore my comment, just read, you could use diskpart from command prompt to convert to mbr

Idleman · 17 Dec 2012 at 08:30

GPT as far as I know is associated with Mac.
I think you would be better off formatting the disc using a partition tool on UBCD.
Wipe it clean and start again.

covenantuk · 17 Dec 2012 at 08:46

GPT disks are a way of using larger disks vs MBR. Windows supports them fully.

http://www.petri.co.il/gpt-vs-mbr-based-disks.htm

Idleman · 17 Dec 2012 at 09:15

What harddrive are we talking about OP.

kthula666 · 17 Dec 2012 at 10:40

OP Do you have other HD's connected or just one CD drive and one HD. Go through control panel to disc managment on another pc and check the disk does not have some random partition there, try setting the HD up through that. What make and size of HD is it?

Cromulent · 17 Dec 2012 at 16:53

covenantuk said:
GPT disks are a way of using larger disks vs MBR.

Not just larger disks. Windows on UEFI motherboards needs to be installed on GPT partitioned drives.

claypigeon101 · 17 Dec 2012 at 19:57

Hi guys thank you for your replies.
Idleman It's a Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB, I bought the system in 2008 and it's run true ever since then, until now.
And kthula I just have an IDE DVD drive and the one SATA WD Green, that's it. But the darned thing won't even boot to the splash screen...
Since the first time I reformatted the disk recently (upon installing new motherboard) the only time it's successfully booted up is after I used a Windows system to format the HDD. But I think the GPT partition table, or something like that, was still present from the dealings with my Macbook Pro...

bertles86 · 17 Dec 2012 at 21:00

I'd suggest your partitions are causing trouble.

Download and a burning a DBAN boot cd and boot off that, then run the default algorithm to give the hdd a fresh life.

Then remove the DBAN disk, bung in vista, boot, format and install.

Idleman · 17 Dec 2012 at 21:32

bertles86 said:
I'd suggest your partitions are causing trouble.

Download and a burning a DBAN boot cd and boot off that, then run the default algorithm to give the hdd a fresh life.

Then remove the DBAN disk, bung in vista, boot, format and install.

Something like this, for instance.

I think you would be better off formatting the disc using a partition tool on UBCD.
Wipe it clean and start again.

claypigeon101 · 18 Dec 2012 at 00:05

meade16 said:
Doesn't the Vista disk have the option to format the hard disk for you?

Hey man I did use that feature, it didn't work. It pulled that GPT error!

claypigeon101 · 18 Dec 2012 at 00:06

Thanks guys, I'm looking at Boot and Nuke and the other one now. But will they run since my PC doesn't even boot to the BIOS splash :S

or should I say, nothing comes on the screen... I don't have a beeper/speaker so I don't know whether I get the BIOS bleep or not either!

kthula666 · 18 Dec 2012 at 00:54

Does your other PC have a removable small speaker you could use to check for beeps. Lots of mobo's come with tiny speakers now.

claypigeon101 · 18 Dec 2012 at 01:31

Nope, sadly, I checked two spare motherboards and they're both soldered onto the board. I'm using a spare Windows 7 laptop to do a full format of the disk again.. to see once and for all whether convert to MBR and a non-quick format would do the trick

if that doesn't work tonight, then i'll drop by the PC shop and pick up a mobo speaker to plug in.
Also I don't know whether this is relevant but where the motherboard screws to the backplate with those brass hexagonal spacer/mounts, one was missing in the corner so the lower right corner of the motherboard does not contact the backplate. Is this likely to cause me any problems at all? The board is secured well enough but I was wondering whether it might affect the circuitry at all... ignore me if not