(Big) Problems installing XP

[iCe]

Note: I have to use XP on this machine. It's primarily a work / email box and the a lot of the work programs won't load on Win 7. I moved my photo programs to a Mac Pro a few years ago so I don't "need" Win 7 (sure would be nice though)

My work computer lost it's primary hard drive over 2 weeks ago. After expended all methods to bring it back to life I installed a 750 Gb drive, reloaded my necessary programs, and started working on it again. The 750 Gb drive bit the dirt. That's what I get for grabbing a drive I had sitting around I guess.

During the process of troubleshooting the crashed drive I booted up (When I say "I booted up" I used a CD and booted to a program called Bart PE) and looked around at the other drives to make sure the data was intact. I have (3) 750 Gb drives for data. It was all there and when I got my programs loaded I was able to use it. That's crash 1.

Crash 2- The system got hung up about a week ago so I went to bed expecting that it was related to too many programs being loaded or too little memory and that the pc would be rebooted or running. All I had when I checked it the next morning was a blinking cursor. Ruh roh... I assumed that it was another drive crash even though I had used a new in box drive that I had bought for a Drobo a few years ago but didn't use. When I booted up with BPe only one drive was shown and it wasn't the drive that the OS was on. It was one of my data drives. No other drive showed up. I thought "the SATA controller bit the dirt" so I ordered a new Mobo, 4Gb of memory, and I7 processor Fast forward to yesterday, I installed the new hardware, expecting the drives to be there and the system to boot from the drive that had been working. Nyet... I used the System Recovery Console and did what I could to revive it but it's dead. If I remember correctly it's the same drive that I had problems with in the Drobo. So... I installed a 1Tb drive that I had sitting on a shelf but not NiB. I formatted it and started the XP SP 2 install. It's a good disk. I used it to do the first install. Formatting a 1TB drive (NTFS) takes forever... but I finally got to see the progress bar moving to the right and files being transferred at about 9pm last night. I checked the machine before going to bed and it said Restarting computer... I checked around on the net and found some info on HDD size limits (that didn't apply) so I broke the drive into (2) partitions, reformatted, and started over. When the files started transferring I thought "Awesome... It'll be finished when I get up in the morning."

When I got up and checked it the screen said- Restarting computer... It still says Restarting computer... Based on last nights experience, if I reboot the PC it won't start. It asks for a CD with the OS on it and when I install the CD all I get is the Install / Repair / Quit menu. If use Repair it drops me to a DOS prompt. The drive is readable and has data on it. I'm at a loss for what to do at this point. It's possible that the drive is bad and I guess it's possible that I have a bios setting wrong (I used the MoBo's optimized defaults selection though). If the drive was bad I would think that I couldn't read it... unless maybe the boot sector is hosed up. IDK. Help...

[Flea77]

So let me get this right. You have had three major crashes with this box, two with one MB/CPU/Mem combo and one on another.

Assuming I have that correctly, I would next look at the power supply and case cooling. If the power supply is a cheapo, or underpowered, or too old, it could be there is not enough power to run everything so the drives are taking it hard (literally). It is also possible that you have three hard drives sandwiched in there with insufficient cooling to the drives and they are overheating.

Now it is also possible that you were correct in your guess about the SATA controller and you have something wrong with the build you are now putting together. For example, is the memory you bought on the QVL for the motherboard? Is the thermal paste installed 'correctly' on the CPU? Did you lap the heatsink? Is that CPU specifically supported by that particular BIOS?

Any way it goes here is how I would proceed:

1) Check to make sure the memory is on the QVL. (Amazing how many people don't do this then wonder what happened)
2) Add up all the power requirements for all the hardware and make sure the power supply could support that with at least a 25% cushion. If it is an el-cleapo power supply, replace it anyway or reduce the watts it says it will put out by 50%.
3) Check to make sure the CPU is seated correctly, thermal paste is correct, and that CPU is supported by the BIOS (if not, flash the BIOS).
4) Get a good diagnostic package (I like Ultra-X) and run it overnight, make sure it does full and complete memory and hard drive diagnostics.
5) Check to make sure there is good to great airflow across the hard drives, install new fans if needed. One case fan in the back will NOT necessarily cool three hard drives in the front (and case fan is NOT the same as power supply fan).

Lets see where this gets you.

Allan

[iCe]

The third crash wasn't really a crash. Friggen XP doesn't come with SATA drivers so it didn't like my SATA drive being the boot disk. I dl'd some drivers from the mobo site but the system halted during the OS install when I used them (F6 during install) so I came up with plan B (see below)

PS is a 1200W Thermaltake. I doubt if I used 25% of it as I don't have a lot of extra's.
The case is a Thermaltake and not counting the PS fan and CPU fan I have 3 fans.

Thermal paste, memory, etc is all good. I bought memory with the mobo.

I'll probably end up dual booting Win 7 / XP

[Flea77]

Originally Posted by iCe

Thermal paste, memory, etc is all good. I bought memory with the mobo.

But was the memory on the QVL?

Originally Posted by iCe

Friggen XP doesn't come with SATA drivers so it didn't like my SATA drive being the boot disk.

True, but most good motherboards don't actually need SATA drivers, you can just put them in 'compatible' mode and away you go. Heck, all of the ones I have been installing I didn't even do that, they just automatically work. What model of MB do you have?

On another note, you said you had software that wouldn't install on 7, have you tried 7 pro's XP mode? Heck, I have clients running DOS word processors in 7 pro without the XP mode (don't ask). I do however have to run QuickBasic 4.5 in DosBox (another don't ask, heh).

Allan

[Rson]

First, go into the bios and select Fail-Safe and not Optimized.

Second, what are the specs of your "box" Models please

Third, have you checked for XP compatability? Some newer Mobo's and devices are not getting driver written for XP.

Forth, unplug all extra devices, when loading only load the essential. I know that I have had issues with my Officejet screwing up the install and load.

[iCe]

QVL- Actually- I don't know what that means exactly. I had the ram plugged in to the wrong slot initially and all I got was a string of beeps. I moved it to the correct slots and everything went fine from there.

Flea- Ditto on plug and play. Not this time. When I tried to use F6 on install and add the drivers the PC BSOD'd. On the topic of compatability, it's PLC programming software and from everything I've been told it won't work in XP compatibility mode

I finally got ticked and decided to dual boot, installing Win 7 first. The Win 7 (64 bit) install went fine. I was about to install Office and I noticed that the LAN connection wasn't working anymore. I inserted the driver disk that came with the mobo and let it install everything. Bad idea. On the reboot I got a fail to read drive. I put the Windows disk back in and used repair to go back to the last known good install. Since it was a brand new install it was pretty easy to get back to before I used the mobo CD. Except I got the same failed to read disk error.

Hours later I had been down the road of deleting and adding partitions, formatting, changing drives (this time to a NiB 2 Tb drive. I've reinstalled Win 7 so many times I should be eligible to work at the Geek Squad... Especially since it doesn't work. Every time since using the Mobo CD I get failed to read drive. Yet every time I check the log file it says Win 7 booted normally and it passed all test. Expletive deleted...

Right now the power is off and I'm at a loss for what to do. I think it's possessed.

Seriously- I think the GeForce 7300GT video card is some of the problem. I might be wrong about that but it's the one thing I haven't changed. I had a pair of them installed prior to the "big crash of 2010" but one was always slow to come online. Someone warned me that the vid card could take the system down. I didn't believe them. Now I'm not so sure.

If I plug my other drives in it sees them. It just doesn't like to boot.

Something just occurred to me. I had forgotten about it in the fog of war. During one of my repartition / format events I went in and turned AHCI off. When I deleted the partitions and added them back I noticed that the small partition that usually gets created automatically wasn't there. This happened toward the end of the evening so the fail to read issue didn't come from that however I wonder if it's a contributor. Little things add up.

Rich-
I'll try that when I get home this evening.

Gigabyte P55-USB3 mobo
Intel I7-860 processor
Corsair DDR3 mem sticks (2x2Gb)

I haven't

I only have a vid card installed. Nothing else. That's all I really use anyway.

I appreciate the help

[zennoodle]

I'm not a fan of Corsair memory.... *random* haha... Did you listen to the beeps when the computer turned on?

[Flea77]

Originally Posted by iCe

QVL- Actually- I don't know what that means exactly. I had the ram plugged in to the wrong slot initially and all I got was a string of beeps. I moved it to the correct slots and everything went fine from there.

QVL is the Qualified Vendor List, but usually it is a bit more specific than that. For example, all of the Asus QVLs I see every day list specific memory part numbers as well as manufacturers and includes the speeds, CAS, amount, and banks it was tested in. Following the QVL all but guarantees that you will not have memory problems (assuming the memory is good to start with).

Different motherboards react differently. We have a lot of machines out there with Corsair XMS in it, although the newer Asus i7 workstation class boards seems to like Kingston HyperX better. We use HyperX exclusively in our C2D and C2Q installs.

Originally Posted by iCe

Flea- Ditto on plug and play. Not this time. When I tried to use F6 on install and add the drivers the PC BSOD'd. On the topic of compatability, it's PLC programming software and from everything I've been told it won't work in XP compatibility mode

Well there certainly is software out there that will not run under 7, it is just fairly rare. Another question, have you tried Vista? I know a couple of programs that will run under Vista that don't under 7. Might be worth a shot.

Originally Posted by iCe

I finally got ticked and decided to dual boot, installing Win 7 first. The Win 7 (64 bit) install went fine. I was about to install Office and I noticed that the LAN connection wasn't working anymore. I inserted the driver disk that came with the mobo and let it install everything. Bad idea. On the reboot I got a fail to read drive. I put the Windows disk back in and used repair to go back to the last known good install. Since it was a brand new install it was pretty easy to get back to before I used the mobo CD. Except I got the same failed to read disk error.

Interesting. Sounds like a blip in the chipset that when it gets properly initialized it blows. That very well could be memory (the speeds ramp up once the chipset drivers are installed) although it does sound more like a drive controller problem. Have you tried downloading the latest drivers and installing them one at a time, reboot between each?

Originally Posted by iCe

Hours later I had been down the road of deleting and adding partitions, formatting, changing drives (this time to a NiB 2 Tb drive. I've reinstalled Win 7 so many times I should be eligible to work at the Geek Squad... Especially since it doesn't work. Every time since using the Mobo CD I get failed to read drive. Yet every time I check the log file it says Win 7 booted normally and it passed all test. Expletive deleted...

You don't need experience to work at GS, just an A+ gets you in, heh.

Do you have another computer? If so, put your boot drive in it, remove all partitions, create one large one and do a long format. Then stick it back in the new machine and go.

If you do not have a second PC, pull the power, pull the CMOS battery, wait 60 seconds, put the battery back in, plug it back in, load failsafe BIOS defaults, wipe the partitions, create one new one, long format, reinstall and load only the latest drivers one at a time, reboot between each.

Originally Posted by iCe

Seriously- I think the GeForce 7300GT video card is some of the problem. I might be wrong about that but it's the one thing I haven't changed. I had a pair of them installed prior to the "big crash of 2010" but one was always slow to come online. Someone warned me that the vid card could take the system down. I didn't believe them. Now I'm not so sure.

Anything can take the system down. I have had modems take out machines. Remember that whatever its function, it is an electronic device plugged into the same bus as the rest of the machine. A hardware failure there can drain the voltage or introduce weird data onto the bus killing everything else.

That said, this would be the first time I have heard of a video card doing this specific thing (and in 26+ years, that is saying something!). Stopping it from booting, sure, corrupting the screen, yeah, wiping boot sectors, never heard that one.

As for AHCI that really should not cause this problem, unless of course the drivers you loaded require AHCI which I doubt. I do however have another long shot for you. Back in the day (a few years ago) I ran across a problem where the high speed SATA was incompatible with certain drives. There really was no rhyme or reason to it but I found that if I changed the jumper on the hard drive to force 1.5 instead of 3 speeds, it would work fine. I would be completely shocked to see a setup this new with that problem, but it does kinda fit.

Lastly, I am assuming you have the RAID functionality turned off?

Allan

[Rson]

Ok, Xp sucks with loading SATA drivers and always looks for a damn floppy drive. What service pack do you have? You might have to load at least a SP1 for the drivers, or in the BIOS disable the audio, LAN, and Firewire. Do this after you load the fail-safe from the bios screen.

[iCe]

Rich, I'm not home at the moment. I think it's SP2. Almost sure that it is. More reason not to need drivers...

Back to Win 7. Why would it load and work fine and then when I hosed it up with the driver install and I reformatted the drive not load again? I get a failed to read disk error on the install reboot.

I forgot one other common denominator in all this. The power supply. That said, how could a ps problem let me install Win 7 all the way to the reboot stage but not allow the disk to read at reboot? IDK...

[venchka]

Go over to the reloading station at home. Grab some reloaded ammo. Grab an appropriate container for the reloads. Shoot the offending computer. Send the remains to B.G.