Windows Will Not Load

Lex-UK · 17 Mar 2006 at 18:45

I have recently upgraded my motherboard to the Gigabyte GA-8N-SLi Royal and after installing windows running the Nvidia SATA driver, booting fine, all needed drivers installed, updated windows at least 35 critical updates, restarted after installation complete but windows will not boot at all, after the "verify DMI Pool Data" message there is a black screen, if i press F8 to bring up those option, and choose any of them, it goes to which OS i want to start and after hitting enter it freezes. if i try to boot from the Windows CD it freezes on the "Setup up is checking your hardware configuration"

System:
Gigabyte Ga-8N-Sli Royal, Bios Version F5
P4 3.6
DDR2 667 2GB
250 SATAII
ATI x850XT 256mb

and of course Windows XP Home.

Any help would be grately appreciated, its annoying how you can only install or repair windows so many times before it tells you you dome it too many times.

thanks
Lex

theMAD2 · 18 Mar 2006 at 00:15

I'm guessing that after changing the motherboard it's changed too much in one go. Is safemode working? Might be worth running a windows repair on the install. You should be able to do this by running the windows xp setup, and it should find a previous version of windows and give you the option to repair.

Slam62 · 18 Mar 2006 at 10:40

theMAD2 said:
I'm guessing that after changing the motherboard it's changed too much in one go. Is safemode working? Might be worth running a windows repair on the install. You should be able to do this by running the windows xp setup, and it should find a previous version of windows and give you the option to repair.

he said it wont start from the cd.

I would check everythings plugged in ok, especially memory and gcard.

If you can get into the bios, check yer sata mode etc

try resetting optinised defaults, sounds like some sort of harware glitch, possibly the cd drive connector or sata as well.

worth trying different sata modes in the bios, maybe that the driver has not installed properly, sorry thinking on the fly.

I think the sata has got to be the prime suspect, windows is having trouble reading it, good luck

Also check you have correct slave/master mode if reqd

Lex-UK · 18 Mar 2006 at 12:29

brilliant, thanks! its working now, must have been something in the BIOS, and i also changed the sockets the HDD's are connected to. it appears to have been something else to do with RAID,probably would have been easier to just go RAID instead. Thanks again, i nearly gave up on gigabyte.

Lex-UK · 18 Mar 2006 at 14:08

i had got it working but after a few updates (windows media player, rebooted fine,) then Graphics Driver didnt boot it takes a few attempts of changing a couple of things in he bios about raid to get it going again, is it worth repairing windows? i have it working again but i am not sure if it will give up anytime i reboot or turn my machine on.

edit:
Also i have noticed that windows gave my storage HDD the letter C but gave the HDD that winodws installed on F: i changed the storage one to G so it comes after the bootable one.

ColinR · 18 Mar 2006 at 17:02

I'd burn your important files (like music, photos, work stuff) on to DVD/CD/Memory stick and then blow the entire installation away and start again. I was lucky with my new motherboard that I didn't have to do very much to resurrect the old installation (repair install as suggested) but that was with XP x64 (going from nForce3 to nForce4 - ignore sig). If you can afford a new copy of XP Pro or x64 get it, as Home is rubbish when it comes to bringing it back to life after a problem.

Lex-UK · 18 Mar 2006 at 17:34

is there many bugs in x64 and will x32 programs run on it fine?

Slam62 · 18 Mar 2006 at 19:00

Hi

Dont worry about the post above, xp home is fine, pro only has a few extras tagged on but as far as you're concerned they are the same.

XP 64 is bit of a lemon really, its neither one thing or the other, great in theory but pointless in reality. (i'll leave you all to argue about that, but its true)

If you are really concerned about your installation, which you shouldnt be unless it crashes or runs games bad, then you can reinstall windows over the top of itself and it should keep evrything, I wouldnt though.

If you are concerned, but it boots i would reinstall all the drivers, mboard,vid and sound. Really though it should be ok now.

Lex-UK · 19 Mar 2006 at 16:46

Thanks for that, maybe i'll wait until Vista is about i noticed that netgear doesnt do x64 drivers untill Vista. i'll stick with this installation as it is working fine just the drive letters and if i was to install again, it would probably tell me i have installed windows too many times and need a new key.