New comp, won't boot Please help
Hey there everyone, haven't been here in quite some time, but I am alive and well (except for this massive issue I'm having). Any and all help is, as always, greatly appreciated.
So I built a new comp: AMD 64 X2 3800+, Asus A8N5X, connnect3D Radeon X800, 1G Corsair valueselect, maxtor SATA hd, NEC dvd burner, 500W supply. Windows copy is legal (academic).
I installed windows no problem, the issues began when I started to install stuff. First time through installed chipset stuff, then tried ati drivers & catalyst. Reboot told me that catalyst can't run w/o .net... fine went to windows update and got all critical updates and .net. Tried to reboot and it wouldn't get past the windows screen (blue blob just kept scrolling on past).
Installed windows again, no prob. Installed chipset, then installed all critical updates. Again, won't boot but I was able to get back into windows by selecting last good configuration. This time I tried installing the crit updates 2 at a time. No booting issues. Then I tried .net and once again no boot and I couldn't get in via last known config.
Installed windows again, critical updates 2x2, skipped .net. No problems. Installed ati drivers only, av, firewall, etc. No issues booting up. Installed COD2, played fine. No issues booting. Then installed acrobat reader and MBM (and then promptly uninstalled it once I saw my motherboard wasn't supported). Once again, can't reboot and I can't get in via last known config.
Went to sleep, woke up and tried removing RAM (no change), then I moved the dvd drive to the second IDE channel (it was on the first), then I was able to boot. Came home later, couldn't boot again. Wasn't able to get in through last known config at first, but second try worked. Poked around in windows, tried restarting, can't reboot.
Now I have removed the dvd drive and the floppy drive and I can only get into safe mode.
Two observations:
1. When windows was working correctly, there was always an Unknown device in the device manager which windows could not find the drivers for (location said it was on the graphics card).
2. Whenever windows does not boot correctly, right after it checks the mouse and keyboard (lights flash), the mouse sometimes comes back on, but the keyboard doesn't. This is an indicator that it isn't going to boot for me at this point.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. :-)
PS. I dont know if this has any relevance, but my connection to the internet seems to dissappear while in safe mode... ie I was connected one minute, not the next.
EDIT: I have to run out for a bit, but I will definitly be back tonight (hopefully no more than 2 hrs).
So I built a new comp: AMD 64 X2 3800+, Asus A8N5X, connnect3D Radeon X800, 1G Corsair valueselect, maxtor SATA hd, NEC dvd burner, 500W supply. Windows copy is legal (academic).
I installed windows no problem, the issues began when I started to install stuff. First time through installed chipset stuff, then tried ati drivers & catalyst. Reboot told me that catalyst can't run w/o .net... fine went to windows update and got all critical updates and .net. Tried to reboot and it wouldn't get past the windows screen (blue blob just kept scrolling on past).
Installed windows again, no prob. Installed chipset, then installed all critical updates. Again, won't boot but I was able to get back into windows by selecting last good configuration. This time I tried installing the crit updates 2 at a time. No booting issues. Then I tried .net and once again no boot and I couldn't get in via last known config.
Installed windows again, critical updates 2x2, skipped .net. No problems. Installed ati drivers only, av, firewall, etc. No issues booting up. Installed COD2, played fine. No issues booting. Then installed acrobat reader and MBM (and then promptly uninstalled it once I saw my motherboard wasn't supported). Once again, can't reboot and I can't get in via last known config.
Went to sleep, woke up and tried removing RAM (no change), then I moved the dvd drive to the second IDE channel (it was on the first), then I was able to boot. Came home later, couldn't boot again. Wasn't able to get in through last known config at first, but second try worked. Poked around in windows, tried restarting, can't reboot.
Now I have removed the dvd drive and the floppy drive and I can only get into safe mode.
Two observations:
1. When windows was working correctly, there was always an Unknown device in the device manager which windows could not find the drivers for (location said it was on the graphics card).
2. Whenever windows does not boot correctly, right after it checks the mouse and keyboard (lights flash), the mouse sometimes comes back on, but the keyboard doesn't. This is an indicator that it isn't going to boot for me at this point.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. :-)
PS. I dont know if this has any relevance, but my connection to the internet seems to dissappear while in safe mode... ie I was connected one minute, not the next.
EDIT: I have to run out for a bit, but I will definitly be back tonight (hopefully no more than 2 hrs).
0
Comments
which sounds pretty similar to my issue. I did not install any third-party scsi or raid drivers when I installed windows (didn't know I needed to) nor do I even know where to find the drivers at this point.
Should I try uninstalling the nvidia nforce drivers from the system? Will that really help in the long run?
Guidance anyone?
My feeling is that if Windows is rejecting the nVidia chipset drivers then there are probably other problems lurking on the system just waiting for a chance to screw you over.
I personally am kind of fussy when it comes to fresh installs, if there is any significant glitch I like to format and start all over. (My attitude is the exact opposite with a system I've already spent hours and hours tweaking and customizing, in that case I'll go all out to avoid a format.)
If you haven't spent any significant amount of time transferring data to the new system, etc, I'd be inclined to recommend that you make yourself the floppy I mentioned above (or look again to see if there was one in the MB box) and take a do-over.
Good luck.
I find this odd because I was able to access the drive without any problems setting up windows and using windows for a while, but after certain installations (.net) the system would just never boot again.
I didn't install much on the system (basically av/firewall, firefox, COD2). Nothing that can't be replaced I suppose. Hopefully this works.
Thanks prof, I'll post how this turns out.
I installed the SATA drivers via floppy, but this did not work entirely as windows still wouldn't boo after succesfully installing it and the mb drivers. I used system restore to get to the fresh windows install and re-installed the mb stuff. This time I did not install the IDE SW drivers which apparently overwrite the SATA drivers and screw everything up (found this out via google searches).
So, lesson to be learned: Do not install IDE SW drivers when using SATA. Maybe everyone else already knew that, but I hope putting it here will help this thread show up for others when search for this kind of issue.
Thanks much for the help prof, hopefully the system will be okay from here on out.
After the above was fixed the comp has worked well for about two weeks. Then the other day I was playing COD2 and the game randomly froze on me and I had to hard reboot. During the boot the screen showed "Windows cannot boot, blah blah, file is corrupted Windows\System32\Config\System, use repair console, blah blah. So then I go load my xp CD and go into the console and run chkdsk and it finds an error. Then the computer rebooted fine.
Unfortunatly the next day COD2 randomly just exited while I was playing and then the comp got stuck when I tried to shut it down. Another hard reboot and I got the same error message again before Windows would start loading. Same fix worked again.
Even more unfortunatly today something in firefox freaked out and all of a sudden the comp started rebooting on its own. Same message prior to windows, but this time when I tried to load windows from the CD I get a blue screen with two error messages:
*STOP: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x804E518E, 0xFC938104, 0xFC937E04)
*acpi.sys {some error code, date stamp, I can't remember}
I've tried turning off any acpi stuff in the bios but that has no effect. At this point I have no problem re-installing windows, but I can't even get the setup program to run! It BSODs right after it is done loading all the files/drivers/whatever when running from the win xp cd.
Is the HD busted? I've got no idea what to do at this point except buy a new HD and install windows on it and try to use my other one for storage if it will work. Any help greatly appreciated.
So the only thing that was really installed was the software for my creative zen micro. That and a printer.
For the last hour or so I've been looking around on the internet (I'm on the old rig now) and I was checking into warranty info for the hd. The drive that I bought was called a QuickView drive from Maxtor. I found this:
http://www.maxtor.com/_files/maxtor/en_us/documentation/data_sheets/quickview_data_sheet.pdf
on thier site.
Umm so apparently that drive is intended for DVRs?! Wft, mate?! Maybe this is the source of all my issues... If so I'll buy a new drive (Western Digital this time I think).
Steve, did you get my email earlier this week? I finally was able to reply to your email from xmas time, but I was having some mail troubles with thunderbird. Let me know.
Also, I found this page which says:
"Copping a page from Maxtor's QuickView technology, which garnered the company a huge share of the drive-based digital video recorder market (TiVo, ReplayTV, and the like), ATA/7's T13 AV commands enable makers to ditch most of the error checking required by PC apps. A bad bit can crash executable programs or ruin data files, but it's rarely perceptible in AV streams, so it makes sense to skip error correction and move on with the show, increasing performance by up to 30 percent. The new command set means more concurrent AV streams and reduced stress on the drive."
Sounds like the lack of proper error checking could certainly have led to the corruption of my system files after the hard reboots.
Any other thoughts anyone?
Maybe the motherboard is screwed up?! Is there a way to reset the bios or something? (Asus a8n5x)
Just a thought.
I ran memtest86 and the thing just went crazy with errors. Over a million I believe. So I took one of the sticks out (I have two 512 sticks) and the system wouldn't even boot from the CD, so I put the other in and ran memtest flawlessly.
Hooked up the questionable HD and got into windows just fine (although a window came up that said Windows XP has recovered from a serious error, blah blah blah).
So, hopefully things are alright now. I do plan on updating the bios and I'll have to see what I can do about get some replacement RAM. Plus now I have an extra 80 gigs of HD space. Minor issues to deal with compared to not having a computer that works I suppose.
Thanks for the help everyone.