New Intel Quad core upgrade, Windows won't start.

[indigo0086]

Basically I upgraded from the setup in my signature to an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 w Asus P5K Pro and 4gb DDR2-1066 ram, EVGA GeForce 8800 Graphics card, Corsair 520w power supply. Before I connected it into the case of my current setup, I connected the new setup to my power supply and checked for a POST. Everything was recognized fine and dandy. I then proceed to swap the inside of my current computer's motherboard and power supply. I connected everything and went to the BIOS settings and checked if everything was alright. I set the boot hard-disk to my current windows HD on SATA 0, everything else recognizes fine. I then save the settings and proceed to start windows.

The windows login shows up for about a second, then flashes to a blue screen and restarts, every time. I recorded it with my mini camera and paused it on the blue screen and it basically said (paraphrase)

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down... if this is the first time you've had this error restart, if you see this again, follow these steps: Check for viruses (can't do that) Remove newly installed HD (only one HD that starts up) Check hard drive to make sure it is properly configured and terminated (???) rucn CHKDSK /p to check for corruption and restart (see below) Technical Informaiton: STOP: -0x0000007B.... (memory addresses)

So basically I restarted and booted from my windows cd and went into repair mode. I ran a CHKDSK and it came out with no errors.

One thing I did notice were that in the repair mode my drives were labeled C for my HD0 partition 1 (windows), D HD0 partition 2 (storage), and E HD1 (storage). When my drives when windows did start were labeled G for my windows partition, Z for my other partition, and F for my second storage drive. Could it be that there is an error. I don't know how to change the drive mappings (when I did type map, the repair froze and I had to shut down)

Also I did a manual boot.ini before I restarted because there was a conflict at a time I installed windows on another drive by accident, could it be I need to change the boot.ini to read from the proper drive? If so, I can't find a text editing mode in the command prompt.

If anyone has had this problem, please help me out. I want to just re-install windows on top of my current one but it will be a hassle to re-organize all those programs after they are wiped from the registry, might as well reformat, but that's a last resort.

I sound desperate because I'm in a software engineering course and am a programmer so I basically need a computer for a big project I'm doing, otherwise I could just wait.

I hope I gave enough information, please help me if you can. Thanks.

[doctorgonzo]

You need to do a repair install because you switched motherboards. Boot from your Windows CD, then hit I to do an install (not R for the repair console). It will detect your existing Windows install and ask if you want to do a repair install or a new install. Select Repair install. Your data will be safe.

[indigo0086]

OK that worked, but apperantly I activated windows too many times, what do I do, I'm not buying a whole new windows XP version

[doctorgonzo]

If it is telling you it can't be activated, call Microsoft at the listed number and explain things. That's all it takes.

[indigo0086]

Yeah did that last night at 12am (Thank god for india's time zone) and got it resolved. But I plan on reformating my computer soon, so I'm going to have to do the same thing then? Is there a way to refresh my windows so I can activate it online?

[glc]

You have to wait 120 days for the activation cycle to reset. Otherwise you will be talking to India again.

[indigo0086]

Oh, that explains why. I had to activate it not long ago because I re-installed something (I think a driver or something). So I guess I'll wait to reformat it.