The Socket 939 Appreciation Club and Knowledgebase [Official] - Page 85 - Overclock.net

timxirish · 03-04-08

Man, i've tried everything I can think of. Nothing is working at all. I'll try using a spare DVD drive (i've got 3 of them), but the drive seems to be pefectly fine if it can boot a linux live cd. I've set my bios to boot from a HD with NTLDR as the MBR, and set it to boot from a HD with GRUB as the MBR (which has an option to boot XP by passing the task on to NTLDR), and I've made sure in every scenario that my bios is set to boot from CD-ROM before anything else. Jumpers should be perfectly fine too, because I haven't touched them in years and installed fine mutiple times. I really don't understand why it's being so fussy.

I really want to strangle this machine now. :swearing:

Poser · 03-04-08

@Tim...

if you wouldn't mind, list all the changes to your system that you have made since you last installed windows. Maybe we can spot something...

blitz6804 · 03-04-08

I had a similar issue timxirish. You need to restore the MBR prior to Linux. The easiest way to do this is back up all your Linux data, and then use a live CD to repartition the entire drive.

A harder way to do that is look how to restore the original Windows MBR. Windows does not like be installed after Linux, but rather, the other way around.

**thlnk3r** · 03-04-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by timxirish

All it seems to do is give me the "Press any key to boot from CD..." line, and after that the next line says "Setup is detecting your hardware configuration" and goes to a black screen and stays there. Very irritating.

Tim, have you tried copying the CD to another one? What is the condition of the media that contains the XP install? Have you tried a different optical drive? I found that different media (cd's) can sometimes be picky with certain optical drives. Is your system overclocked or on stock settings? Try disconnecting your secondary drives as well. Just keep the drive that will have the operating system connected. If you haven't already, I'd recommend running surface scans on each drive to look for bad sectors. You never know. For your WD drive use Western Digital's Lifeguard Tools and for your Seagate drives, run the Seatools.

Let us know what you find

Good luck

timxirish · 03-04-08

As far as hardware changes go, there's the CPU, then before that I had removed a Pioneer DVR-111D (burner) and a Samsung SH-D162C (DVD-ROM) from my system to make the case lighter (for transportation to lan parties, etc).. Last time I could successfully install was barely before June '07. I should also note that my XP HD does have NTLDR in the MBR. I would have it no other way. GRUB is installed on my third sata drive and is configured to pass the ball to NTLDR if I choose to boot windows.

Now here's the weird part: I managed to get some random no GUI boot cd to load up Norton Ghost and restore from the bootable DVD I had (that I previously couldn't boot from). Image was restored fine, and I was able to boot into XP again, no issue. I applied the hotfix Poser linked me to, despite how it didn't seem quite right for my situation (but hey, I hoped for the best). After that, I reboot and I'm back to square one. Same ballon notification telling me it detected new hardware, and same "Windows needs to restart..." message. I redid the ghetto way to get ghost to boot and restored again. This time, I'm going to try installing XP instead of letting it load into a GUI and fubar me once again... But talk about a crazy PC issue. Never experienced anything like it until now.

Edit: No go. I'm starting to believe that the issue of booting into XP is seperate from booting from the XP cd issue, as I've just had ghost applied for the 2nd time and can't boot from an XP cd. Haven't booted into windows yet-- But I know I can. I'll be back to square one again if I boot into it and restart. I'm going to try a few other nf4 LP bioses from tmod's cd. Oh and I know.. eXpert and Venus are no-no's

.

**thlnk3r** · 03-04-08

Tim, did you a different optical drive? Did you try any of the suggestions that were stated in my previous?

Good luck

timxirish · 03-04-08

Well I tried multiple different media (tdk-- which i've used in the past, khypermedia, and some generic cd-rs laying around) including my offical XP professional CD and all are in great condition.. Still haven't taken out this DVD-/+R drive yet, but I am getting there (probably my next test.. I'll edit in my results briefly). I have tried Lifeguard (quick test) and it was completed without error. Tried different bioses, same result. In a bit I'm going to hop on aim (SN is my OCN name), so if anybody has a potential solution that hasn't been mentioned, shoot me a message.

Edit: As I figured, DVD drive was not the issue. Also I should add that I don't believe the MBR is the issue. I believe the norton ghost image I have overwrites the MBR, as I repaired a fubared xp install which also had a bad MBR by restoring to this master ghost image I made.. Still trying different thing out.

Edit2: With Maxtor and Seagate disconnected, still will not boot cd.

Edit3: Problem SOLVED. It was as simple as a bad IDE cable. I've got Windows XP setup's blue screen staring at me right now, so I'm going to go ahead with it. If all goes well I'll be able to boot into XP and be able to restart my PC with no worry. I can't believe it was the IDE cable. But hey, now I can focus my attention on oveclocking. Time to crank dat Opty.

blitz6804 · 03-04-08

Update: My HDD drive bay cooler was gifted to Pioneerisloud, proving yet again he can never have too much stuff.

Also to update, I just received my Scythe Kama Bay Cooler and my Silverstone FM122-B today. Pity I cannot test it for you all, but I have it. I can say with some authority that the Scythe is a pain to install in my case (since it is tool less) and after doing so, there is a 2-3mm gap all the way around it. The fan in the cooler looks like it is cheapy made next to the Silverstone, but that does not mean it will have bad performance. For the record though, it is about half, maybe a quarter, of the weight of the Silverstone.

**txtmstrjoe** · 03-04-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by blitz6804

Update: My HDD drive bay cooler was gifted to Pioneerisloud, proving yet again he can never have too much stuff.

Psst. I think pioneer needs a new nickname:

"Moochie."

pioneerisloud · 03-04-08

Quote:

Originally Posted by txtmstrjoe

Psst. I think pioneer needs a new nickname:

"Moochie."

That may or may not be a good nickname for the Boobteron. However I like my current nickname

. And when you're flat broke all the time, working minimum wage 24 hours a week to support 2 people.....you take all the handouts that you can find, lol. I paid the shipping for it. The seller always has the right to refuse service

. Don't ask me how I do things, cuz I really don't know, lol. It just is kinda happening for me lately. I'll go back to my funk soon enough, lol. I'm pretty sure I will.

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