Windows Will NOT Boot-Blue Screen

Lucky219

I started my system and all went well. Everything booted and I installed my windows xp install cd. the system rebooted and i took out the disc. It started to load windows. A screen saying that an error may have occured and to start in "safe mode, normally, safe mode with networking, ect." No matter what you select a blue screen with white text appears so quickly that it is impossible to make out a single word, and it all reboots. Every reboot ends in this and restarts. It just cycles this way.

heres what i tried......
moving my ram to different dimms.
using single sticks of ram in different dimms.
starting the bios from defaults. (resetting inside bios and from the switch on the outside of my motherboard.)
changing memory voltage from 1.875 (bios defaults) to 2.2 (which is what it is rated for)
reformatting the hard drive and starting over. (this was done on an external HDD case plugged into my laptop)
all temps and specs look normal.

Everything in my computer is brand new. the setup is as follows.
Motherboard- Abit Ip-35 PRO
Ram- Crucial Ballistix 800mhz dual channel ddr2
Video Card- 8800 gts
Power Supply- Kingwin 600w
Hard Drive- Samsung spinpoint 500gb sata
Cooling is water cooling setup

Windows does load onto my HD but wont load once there. Tried reinstalling and repairing.

any ideas/ suggestions??????????????

I am attempting at the moment to do a memory test on my ram.

thanks.

CB

Let us know the results of the Memtest, then we'll try some other steps.

Lucky219

memtest is running and so far 2 passes and no errors. its been running 51 mins....... I was told by someone to let it go 3 hours or so to be sure. Which i believe is you CB. Thanks. I was just now able to find a cd-rw to get this memtest running.

CB

That's me.

It would really help if we could figure out what that error screen is telling you. Have you been able to see what the error code might be when it flashes by? If you can time it right, you might be able to take a picture of the screen, so that you can read it. Just make sure to turn off the flash.

If it's got two passes of memtest, then it's not the RAM.

Without, the error code, it's hard to know what to do next. Let's look at the Video card. That card should have additional power demands that require more power than it can get from the expansions slot. Double check the power to the card. If that doesn't help (and if the MoBo has on-board video) try booting without the video card in.

Let us know how it goes.

Lucky219

I will try but to take a pic but it is so quick that sometimes the screen doesnt post at all or at least nothing more than a blue flicker.

The video card has a pci-e power cord running to it, and i have a regular power cord on the additional power slot for giving all the pci slots extra power. That power slot is just below my pci-e slot on the motherboard.

I could try to take out the video card. However, I dont have one on the Motherboard so how will i know if windows boots up finally.

Lucky219

ok i got some good screen shots. the error code is on there. Here is what i can make out.......

0x0000007b (0xbaccf52...... I think there is an 8 after the 52 then it stops. I cant make out anything else.

It also says to remove any new hard drive or hard drive controllers, and to check the hard drive to see if it is properly configured and terminated.
Run chkdsk /f also is on the screen.

Thrax

reformatting the hard drive and starting over. (this was done on an external HDD case plugged into my laptop)

Windows was installed on a USB HDD attached to your notebook?

Lucky219

No no no no... I downloaded xp from the disc to the hdd. then when i wanted to reinstall it fresh b/c it wouldnt load up and go to windows, (thought it might be a bad install) i took the hdd out of my computer and put in my external case than reformatted it from my case on my laptop.
I would have done it from the menu when my install cd boots up but it only gave me the ability to repair. I couldnt select the button to reinstall for some reason. That still baffles me.

Lucky219

Would post screen shots but the files are too large........

CB

Okay. that code means 'inaccessible boot device'. Which means that windows is having trouble communicating with the boot sector of the HD.

This could be a boot sector virus, a corrupt drive, or even an IDE malfunction, but at least it narrows it down a little.

Try a different communications cable between the HD and the MoBo. If that doesn't do it, try a different HD (remember that you have to reformat and reinstall windows from scratch). If that still doesn't do it, I would RMA the MoBo.

Lucky219

Ok I managed to figure it all out. The os I was trying to load was for an old gateway laptop. I guess that it wasnt able to be loaded onto any other hardware. I managed to get another version of xp and it booted up like a dream. Silly mistake. Thanks for all the help! I really appreciate it.

CB

Yeah, that'll do it.

Middge

I was just about to mention something like that before I read that you resolved the issue. That error code you got is very common for cases where the software has hard-coded instructions on how to handle certain hardware. In this case it was the IDE controller. Gateway tends to use proprietary addressing schemes that are intentionally designed to botch attempts at using their software on other machines.