big trouble now??? Reinstall XP!

[suitcase]

Well I thought that I would just end all my problems with a fresh install of XP. I went in CMOS and set cdrw first boot, floppy second boot, HDD third boot. Booted with Win Xp Home disc in cdrom. Followed the instructions. Got to the "format drive" section and it said there were two partitions one large NTFS with windows on it and a smaller partition not sure why. I thought that it originally formatted to one large partition. I have the WD HDD 7200 rpm 8mb cache "special edition". Anyway, I clicked formatt and it started with a progress deal to let me know how it was doing. When it finished it began to load files. When it finished that it said that it was ready to restart and I could hit any key to go ahead and restart it which I did. PC reboots and I get a screen that says windows is going to continue setup. The monitor at that point just scrambles and I can't see anything. I retried it several times, same thing happens. Went back in BIOS and hit yes to fail safe mode and saved/exit and it began to reboot over and over. Went back in BIOS and saw that fail safe had set floppy to first boot so I changed it all back the way it was and set cd as first boot. Now on boot up (not sure what you call the screen, it's black with text), just lasts a few seconds but I read that the reason BIOS didn't load is because no drives were found???? Anyway, can I just put in a Win 98 boot disc and formatt the drive and start all over or is XP not loading something that is keeping my display from working? This system is only a few days old. I have a Gigabyte GA-PE8667 Ultra mobo, 512mb Corsair XMS PC 2700 SDRAM, P4 2.53 CPU, ATI RADEON 9700 PRO Graphics card. I think I'll go home (at work now) and remove everything but the HDD and CDRW and try again. Could it be the two partition thing that showed up when it asked to formatt the drive? I don't know much as you can tell. Just want to get this thing to work.

It was working fine before with just a few issues that were agravating me. When I first put it all together it booted right up and windows installed without a hitch. Then it wouldn't recognize com ports for some reason and then I couldn't download updates, so I figure what the hay, how much trouble can it be, right? Just do a fresh install and start from scratch. All new and clean! Life sure does get complicated don't it???

[mike breck]

Hi Suitcase,

Do you have the HD on the RAID controller?

I think your problem is you didn't hit F6 during XP setup to install the Promise drivers for your RAID.

I would recommend using the XP CD to delete all partitions, repartition to suit yourself, and then format the HD again.

When you run XP setup again, watch out for the cue to hit F6 and load the third party drivers. Then load them from floppy disk.

HTH

[suitcase]

My board has raid but i'm not using it. I'm in the right ide connector. I think I have more trouble than I thought. I made win 98 boot disc and still cant do anything win xp has got me running in a loop. I t just keeps rebooting to the "windows restarting setup , then scrws up thescreen and reboots again.

[suitcase]

I'm in the process right now of trying to install xp again. it has formatted the drive and is now copying files. Now when this finishes it will reboot and say that windows is going to continue loading then the screen goes to crap. Ok, when it rebooted, I get a message that BIOS did not load because no drives are connected. Thats after it has jusst read from the xp disc. Makes no sense to me. Maybe if I disconnect everything and see if I can get a POST.

[mike breck]

Are you using an 80wire/40 pin IDE cable and have the HD, and Slave if present, jumpered to Cable Select?

Have you disabled the RAID controllers in the BIOS and via any mobo jumpers if present. The default setup may have re-enabled RAID in the BIOS.

Windows setup problems like this can also be caused by flaky Ram. Can you swop out the Ram?

[suitcase]

I appreciate the help. I found out why I get the "BIOS did not load because no drives are connected" when I boot. It's because I'm not using RAID and I don't have it disabled. According to the manual that doesn't matter, but if I don't want the message to appear every time I boot I must disable the controller in CMOS. About ram. I don't think that it's ram because everything was working fine till I tried to reinstall windows XP. IDEs are set to "auto" which is the default.

Here is where I stand now. I made a 98 boot disc by downloading it from bootdisc.com. Maybe I didn't do that properly, don't know. I set floppy first, cdrw second, hard drive third. Booted with the floppy in and it doesn't work.

I have removed the battery and waited a few minutes to clear CMOS and reinserted it. Set BIOS to optimized defaults. (recommended). Tried the boot disc again, wouldn't work.

As of now I have disconnected floppy, cdrw, hdd, and removed all PCI cards. Boot and get one beep on POST. (all ok?)

When I get home from work I'm going to remove the round IDE cables and reconnect the drives with the cables that came with the motherboard. Enter CMOS and set first boot to the floppy, second boot to the cdrw, and third to HDD 0.

I'm puzzled as to why it won't read from the floppy in CMOS.

[mike breck]

Make sure the Floppy drive is detected proerly in the BIOS and that the cable orientation is correct - Pin1 to Pin1 - twisted end near the floppy drive.

Make sure the connector is covering all the pins and that it is not upside down. It's easy to push it in upside down and it appear to be connected properly.

Try the bootdisk in another PC to make it works. Try the Floppy drive in another PC.

Now you have got rid of the RAID problem, I personally would forget the Floppy Drive for the moment and, set the CD-Rom as the first boot device, use the XP CD, delete all the partitions, format and see if you can install XP with just minimum components i.e. just mobo, Ram, Video card, PSU, CD-Rom and HD.

Keep the Floppy drive out in case it's faulty and affecting the reboot. In fact, it could be any of the IDE devices that's causing the reboot problem.

If you can install XP sucessfully, then try adding one components back at a time and see if any causes problems.

Also check your Ram with Doc memory

http://www.simmtester.com/

HTH

[suitcase]

I haven't tried since my last post but to answer your last, I have tried to boot with the xp disc. It will boot and begin the install. It apparently formatts the drive and copys files and restarts. All of that seems to be fine. But when the pc reboots and windows says that it is continuing setup my screen goes scrambled and I can't see anything. It will stay like that.

The reason I was trying to boot from the floppy was to use the 98 bootdisc and formatt the drive with it. I don't know why I keep losing my video in the middle of the xp setup. Video is fine when I'm in BIOS and when I start the xp install. I can watch it go through the formatt and copying files stage. It's not till it says it's going to reboot and does, that I lose the video. The screen scrambles up and I can't see anything. Windows stops it's setup too. Something must be corrupted in the setup or something.

[mike breck]

Did it not give you an option to delete all partitions before formating? I think you should delete all the partitions.

You didn't install the Western Digital Drive Overlay the last time you installed XP? Did you use the WD program to partition and format your HD last time?

You're not overclocking?

If you have an Anti-Virus option in the BIOS, make sure it's disabled.

Try using the Fail Safe settings in the BIOS instead of optimised defaults.

Try reducing the Ram speed to 100 or 133 - just for the install.

In case, XP has problems loading the proper drivers for your video card, try forcing the VGA drivers during the install

If you get as far as "Installing devices" then when it starts
Press F10+shift
Type "taskmgr" and enter
Task Manager will open
Stop all svchost.exe processes
It will then prompt for all device drivers
Say YES to all except video

This installs a basic VGA video driver for the install
At the last prompt, type exit to continue the setup
Up to date ATI drivers can be added later from Safe Mode.

Lastly, I see this mobo has a dual BIOS setup. If you think there is any chance that the BIOS has been corrupted, then consult your mobo manual to restore the backup BIOS.

HTH

[Alfie]

How do you have the WD drive jumpered?
On what ide position is it set?

[suitcase]

Originally posted by mike breck Did it not give you an option to delete all partitions before formating? I think you should delete all the partitions. "I don't know, really" You didn't install the Western Digital Drive Overlay the last time you installed XP? Did you use the WD program to partition and format your HD last time? "No, I used the XP disc" You're not overclocking? "No, I've made no changes in that area" If you have an Anti-Virus option in the BIOS, make sure it's disabled. "Not sure, don't think it has one" Try using the Fail Safe settings in the BIOS instead of optimised defaults. "I have once" Try reducing the Ram speed to 100 or 133 - just for the install. "Haven't tried that" In case, XP has problems loading the proper drivers for your video card, try forcing the VGA drivers during the install "I don't have the oppertunity to do anything, once windows reboots and says it's going to continue to setup, I lose the video" If you get as far as "Installing devices" then when it starts Press F10+shift Type "taskmgr" and enter Task Manager will open Stop all svchost.exe processes It will then prompt for all device drivers Say YES to all except video "Never gets that far" This installs a basic VGA video driver for the install At the last prompt, type exit to continue the setup Up to date ATI drivers can be added later from Safe Mode. Lastly, I see this mobo has a dual BIOS setup. If you think there is any chance that the BIOS has been corrupted, then consult your mobo manual to restore the backup BIOS. "Thats true, but the manual says that if it detects the BIOS is corrupted it automaticlly swithches to the other BIOS. HTH