Graphics card "cannot start"

Enverex

Every time I restart my PC (since cloning the drive) Windows always boots into the 640x480 16bit mode and when I check device manager the card is flagged as having a problem and when you bring it up it says in the status box "The device cannot start" and thats it. No messages in the system log about it and it does it on every boot no matter what drivers I use. If I delete it then reinstall the drivers I can use the card for that duration but then if I restart the machine it will just reboot Windows into the basic graphics option and say the card could not start again. Any idea what the hell is going on? It's getting really annoying and the complete lack of verbosity on Windows' part it pissing me off too (I'm "trying" to use the latest official Forceware Drivers, the latest betas act the same too).

Thrax

Have you checked for IRQ conflicts?
Do you have "Assign IRQ to VGA" enabled in your BIOS?

Enverex

Well Windows won't tell me what it's assigned as, quote "This device isn't using any resources because it has a problem". I also don't have that option or anything like it in the BIOS.

BlackHawk

Maybe one of the actual system files got screwed in the transistion. Have you tried doing a repair installation? You could also try another card, preferrably non-nVidia and see if the problem continues. If not, maybe an nVidia driver file is lingering or some system file that's specific to nVidia drivers is damaged.

Enverex

I don't have any spare cards to test and I can't do a repair installation at the moment because it wont detect my drive so I have to make a driver disk but after it reads the files off the driver disk it goes to start then asks for the nVidia SCSI disk which is already in there (ARGH). So slipstreaming the drivers would be the only option (lame) and I don't currently have any CD-Rs so that's not possible. I've used driver cleaners and such, didn't help.

BlackHawk

How about System File Checker? Used it alot with 98 but I haven't tried it in XP.

Only other thing I could think of is if you have the space, try installing XP again on another partition. You can start the installation from within windows so it should see your hdd. Usually installed 2k3 like this and I never had a problem. If all goes well you could try copying the installation from one partition to the other.

Enverex

I actually disabled that yesterday because I thought that was what was causing the problem (it kept coming up saying it had copied files back (nv_disp and something else) because they had been overwritten (while I was installing the GeForce drivers) so it would basically f-up the installation process. But nope, that didn't solve it. Installing XP again would have the issue of just reinstalling though, i'll lose all my installed programs and games (or rather have to reinstall them). Ugh... just... ugh.

BlackHawk

One of the top reason why I usually have my games and programs on different partitions.

Enverex

... no.. I mean the games wont work after I reinstall Windows due to the registry being non-existant...

BlackHawk

Some do but I forgot which. Either way, try backing up your game's registry entries. If you do install them into a different partition, just edit the entries and merge them into the registry. Should work in theory.

Enverex

It's more the principal, you shoudln't have to reinstall an OS every other ****ing week, it's just stupid, time wasting and all out ****. It's not just the games, it's a LOT of programs too.

Sledgehammer70

Yeah I do a fresh install every 3 months... you don't even want to see my program list... It seems not to bother me as much as I am use to it, and time isn't a factor, as most the time I can do it in 1 night.. oh well 1 night

but I guarantee it is a conflict in how the clone was done. This happens to graphic drivers 2 times out fo 10

Enverex

Why the hell would cloning from one drive to another cause a graphics driver to need to be reinstalled every reboot, it just makes no sense.

Enverex

Running out of options now. Reinstalling Windows from inside Windows doesn't work. It hangs at 90% or so after it reboots to continue the process. I'm now back at 640x480 because to be honest I'm ****ing sick of reinstalling my graphics card driver now. I can't even install the damn OS because it wont detect the drive, and then when I use a home-made driver disk (BECAUSE UNLIKE EVERYONE OTHER THAN MICROSOFT, THEY AREN'T IN THE 20TH CENTURY) it finds the drive find, then when it goes to install ASKS FOR THE DISK AGAIN BUT DOESN'T EVEN CHECK THE DRIVE.

Tried using nLITE but that doesn't work either. It installs then when I go to run it it gives a massive error message (looks like it is related to .**** v2 framework) that rivals the size of the Unreal Tournament engine errors and won't start.

I'm getting so close to getting rid of Windows completely, using Linux entirely for work and buying a console, I spend 10% of the time doing what I want to do and 90% of the time trying to un**** the ****ing OS.

TheLostSwede

I have never seen that happened before to be honest..never even heard of it. What videocard is it?

Enverex

XFX (nVidia) GeForce 7800GT (PCI-X16).

TheLostSwede

Try this:

Uninstall the sound drivers (Realtek onboard chip right?) and on the reboot, disable the sound in bios for now, and uninstall Nero as i guess you have that installed. Uninstall videodrivers as well as run a drivercleaner of your card. Upon reboot, cancel when it asks for a driver cause it found new hardware. Install the driver package you use. back to windows again, reboot and enable the soundcard, and install those drivers when you get to windows.

Edit**Do you have a TV card as well?

Enverex

Um... I'm not using onboard sound, I'm using an Audigy (1) and I don't have Nero installed (wtf?). I've also tried uninstalling ALL nVidia drivers and reinstalling them (before reboot, after reboot, before AND after reboot, etc, any possible combination) and used DriverCleaner Pro. I have to be carful with the nVidia drivers though as the RAID controler is part of the nVidia chipset drivers. No drivers = no boot (it would BSOD saying it couldn't access the boot drive).

And no, I also don't have a TV card.

TheLostSwede

Have you updated the bios recently?
Uninstall the Audigy totally and possibly even remove it for a short while. Install videocard and se if it works. Then finally install the Audigy again.

Enverex

A while back, a decent amount of time before this started happening. Rolling that back would also mean rolling back to a version almost a few years old (the version before this one caused random bluescreens, as I remember quite well).

TheLostSwede

I edited the post above. Please check.

Enverex

No change... well, other than that I can't listen to music anymore which was probably the only thing keeping me from smashing the machine into tiny peices.

Enverex

Ok, another thing that strikes me as odd is when I was reinstalling my Audigy, it asked me twice for a file from my XP SP2 CD, which I'm sure it didn't do when I installed the Audigy originally.

profdlp

Boot up in Safe Mode and uninstall every last bit of hardware that you possibly can from Device Mangler. Reboot, go directly into the BIOS, then say yes to Force Update of ESCD (or whatever term for it that your BIOS uses).

Then, boot up normally and let Windows have another crack at installing your hardware. This has helped me many times in getting things sorted out.

Enverex

I have to be careful doing that though else I may not get back into Windows at all (SATA n all)... but, oh well, last option I suppose.

profdlp

Enverex wrote:

I have to be careful doing that though else I may not get back into Windows at all (SATA n all)...

That's a good point. To be prepared for "come what may", it might be a good idea to have a variety of SATA drivers handy in case Windows doesn't want to get along with the first one you try. For that matter, I'd try the technique without uninstalling the SATA drivers (but with uninstalling the rest) first.

Enverex

Well, I tried it but it didn't seem too effective at the time due to most drivers either just saying "Cannot uninstall as is required to boot" or it saying "Do you want to restart now?" and it just flat out not removing them. So the only things that ended up getting removed were things like my Joystick, soundcard (again) etc. None of the SATA stuff, etc. But yeah, no change, still the same.

I mean I'm at the point where I'd just say I'd format and reinstall.. but oh wait, I can't, argh. Virtually no options and none of them work anyway.

Esso

For what it's worth,
Langa Letter: XP's Little-Known 'Rebuild' Command

Enverex

Ok, that didn't work either.

Does anyone know anyone that has made a drive floppy-disc for the nForce4 Ultra's RAID that actually works?

Enverex

I tried slipstreaming the RAID drivers onto a CD using another machine and it didn't work. It detects the drive, starts installing but then complains that several files (from the slipstreamed drivers) are missing. Well, I did it to the T and it put the whole folder on there, which means those files are missing from the actual driver packages themselves.

I've had it to be honest. I can't install, I can't repair install, I can't ****ing do anything with Windows. Surely in this apparent 'collective of smart people' there has to be at least someone who has either been through this before or can fix it. 3 days now, three ****ing days just trying to get this XP install to work and not even able to format and reinstall, it's just ludicrus.

Enverex

Managed to make a working slipstreamed CD on the EIGHTH DRIVER SET. Installed it to my old drive, backed up all my data that I needed to keep and then formatted everything.

Get this, if you are using a RAID array and have a normal drive in your machine, it won't install the MBR to the RAID array that boots, no, it installs it to the standalone drive, even if it's nothing to do with your installation and isn't the boot drive. What the **** is wrong with Microsoft? Are they TRYING to break people's computers?

Anyway, setup seems to be working now so not much more to go, just got to hope the cluster resizing works properly. I had formatted the partitions correctly before but Windows didn't like that.