I’ve just installed a new motherboard (chaintech) and new processor (AMD 64 3200+) and memory (1x512MB DDR3200).
I’ve installed everything exquisitely and and working with a minimum system : HD, CD drive, and video card.
After memory check, computer starts to boot up. Recognizes memory, processor, both HD and CD drive and everything seems fine – no error messages. Just at the point where you’d normally see the windows booting screen, screen goes dark and system restarts. This time, after all bios stuff, now showing the screen “Windows was unable to start last time. Do you want to start in safe mode, start windows normally, last known good configuration, etc…” Any one of those options leads to the reboot starting over.
Hard Drive of course works since I switched mobo/cpu/mem back to original and windows boots up completely smoothly.
IDEAS?
HELP!
I consider myself an expert computer user and this one’s got me stumped.
Is a fresh install of Windows in the picture? That’s an awful lot to swap out and expect plug-n-play to pick it all up…
Only other thing I could think of would be something silly like a bent pin on the IDE connector. Windows is obviously starting to load, but then crashing horribly very quickly. That usually points to either hardware failure or driver problems. Unfortunatly, you could be having either. Can you boot from a CD? That would at least rule out IDE problems on the new MB…
I’ve been through the jumper settings and none apply. I’ve also been through the bios and it doesn’t seem to make any difference. Any specifics I should change?
You may want to make sure you have an updated BIOS.
I bought a AMD a few months back and it couldn’t run Win XP and did as you described. I updated the bios on a Win 98 Install and haven’t had a problem since.
1: Check for MB/case gounding problems. Are you using the provided insulating washers between the case and MB? Run the motherboard completely detached from the chassis (but plugged to the PS) temporarily and see if starts properly.
2: Does the chaintech board have onboard video that needs to be defeated before using an separate AGP video card?
3: Disconnect the floppy & CD cables and see if it boots
4: Make sure you are not reading a jumper setting diagram upside down. It’s quite easy to do.
Strangely enough, it wasn’t any jumper or BIOS settings. Nor did it turn out to be any hardware fault (cables, connections, etc). Turns out LordVor seemed to be spot on, even though I basically dismissed it at first. What I ended up doing was reformatting and reinstalling windows xp on to my HD. Everything went smoothly and I’m still mystified.
Now the General Question becomes why did this work? What was wrong?
I understand that changing my mobo is a “fairly big change” because of all the integrated peripherals (network, sound, etc.). But usually these changes are usually dealt with in Windows, not the weird post-POST rebooting cycle. (Any time the computer does weird, random reboots I instantly think power or heat issues)
Furthermore, the windows installation with which I was getting this rebooting problem was no more than 2 days old so I can’t figure out why an even fresher reinstall would solve it.
Needless to say I’m happy that I’m up and running, but still curious.
Well, it made it past the POST and was booting - then it crashes - Windows has drivers for the AGP slot, the memory, the irq, the dma, the onboard audio/video, the USB BUs, the chip, etc. You changed the entire motherboard - different manufacturers use different components - and most of those drivers are going to change.
Why doesn’t the the system repair the problem on bootup? (guess) Probably because the XP driver for the Primary IDE controller you have on your hard drive couldn’t jibe with your onboard IDE controller - the system loads the IDE driver expecting the old motherboard, can’t find it/finds a fault, can’t continue.(/guess) But there are other things that would cause the same problem.
You could have also booted with your XP CD, selected Install, then repair (not repair right off the bat) and it would have scanned your system for updated drivers - my preferred method. You could also have booted with a bootlog.txt file and analyzed the moment where it crashes, after booting in repair mode (the first option.)
You can also experience the same problem if you switch hard drives (while ghosting over the same info.) But this isn’t strange at all.
Besides, if you could just pull the hard drive out of one computer and slap it in another where would be the fun?
Thanks for the reply. Makes sense. I guess I learned that there’s a lot more on that mobo than just the onboard peripherals.
BTW, I did try the repair (not the initial one, just like you mention). Funny thing is that it got me to the windows splash screen (with the psudo-progress bar at the bottom), but gave me the same rebooting problem after the a second or two of that. That’s when I decided to just do the full reinst.
The system was probably bluescreening with an “INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE” error, and then rebooting instantly, before you could read it. This happens if “Automatically Reboot” is checked under Startup and Recovery. WinXP has a new “Disable restart on System Failure” startup item (at the F8 menu) which would give you a chance to see the error message.
I agree this is most likely to be the problem.
Microsoft has a KB article which describes the IDE issue and contains a registry script you can run before you move your hard drive. It adds support for several types of drive controllers. I have used it with mixed results. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes not at all.