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Spare-Flair
Supreme [H]ardness
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2003
- Messages
- 7,471
I recently switched out my old VIA KT333 board for an nForce 2 chipset (DFI Ultra Infinity), got new ram (dual channel 512 DDR), new CPU (mobile Barton) etc. The old system was great, no problems, harddrive (IDE 80GB) ran smooth as a baby but I just needed more speed.
When I plugged in my old harddrive, it has problems detecting the drive. Only about 1/10 reboots will it properly detect the harddrive, even if I detect it in the bios (even there it is spotty, with me having to press "detect" a few times before it shows up.)
So I thought it was the common driver problem with using a new chipset. I put in m WinXP SP1 disc, and used it to repair the previous installation. I got into Windows and all my files were intact, and everything worked great. I thought maybe I didn't have enough power (only 300w powersupply - but this was enough before) or perhaps there was a conflict on the IDE channel so I tried it with only one drive. The only problem was that it still would rarely detect my harddrive and for the most part, I had to unplug my second harddrive (both drives are on one IDE channel) or the computer would refuse to boot off my master drive and give me an : "INVALID SYSTEM DISK".
This is the case, no matter what jumper settings I used, whether both are on cable select or master/slave. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I even switched the IDE cable a few times. It is always the slave/secondary drive that detects perfectly, but my main drive will rarely detect. Well, I thought that for the time being, I would use only one drive, and unplugged the secondary. I was in Windows, reinstalling my problems (the repair reverted SP1 to defaults without windows updates, DX9, WMP9, etc.) so I was installing all these updates. When I installed DX9 and rebooted, I promptly got an:
"ERROR LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM" and from this point on, the comptuer would never load Windows again.
Well, I got frustrated and thought that it was still a driver/chipset problem and decided to totally format the drive. I backed up my drive on my friend's computer and then returned my harddrive to my own computer. I then went and completely reformatted into NTFS and used the WinXP CD to install over again. However, once it finishes the format, the computer reboots. Is it supposed to do this? I can't remember if it reboots first and then loads the windows installer?
Anyway, that's not important, the problem is that windows won't install because the drive now always says "ERROR LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM" at the prompt and even now has some problems detecting the drive. It's driving me crazy and I'm afriad something is wrong with the harddrive.
I can't get anything working now and every boot comes back with the same result nomatter how many formats or repairs I attempt from the WinXP CD (both quick and slow NTFS reformats + repair attemtps). Any idea what's wrong? The drive was working perfectly just a few days ago in my old computer, and working fine (if it managed to be detected) yesterday in my new computer but it refuses to read the OS now or allow me to install a new one.
Is it the harddrive? Or the mobo? I would have to RMA my mobo back to them if that's the case, because it bought it online but I'm leaning more into my harddrive being at fault. I'd hate for it to go bad so quickly. It's only a few months old (Maxtor 7200RPM 80GB). I tried a variety of settings in the DFI Ultra Infinity Bios like turning off SATA raid (even though I have no SATA drive) or disabling HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability but I still can't get anything to work. I guess I'lk have to find somebody willing to lend me their own harddrive so I can test it in my system but are there any other solutions or diagnoses you guys can figure out? Thanks.
When I plugged in my old harddrive, it has problems detecting the drive. Only about 1/10 reboots will it properly detect the harddrive, even if I detect it in the bios (even there it is spotty, with me having to press "detect" a few times before it shows up.)
So I thought it was the common driver problem with using a new chipset. I put in m WinXP SP1 disc, and used it to repair the previous installation. I got into Windows and all my files were intact, and everything worked great. I thought maybe I didn't have enough power (only 300w powersupply - but this was enough before) or perhaps there was a conflict on the IDE channel so I tried it with only one drive. The only problem was that it still would rarely detect my harddrive and for the most part, I had to unplug my second harddrive (both drives are on one IDE channel) or the computer would refuse to boot off my master drive and give me an : "INVALID SYSTEM DISK".
This is the case, no matter what jumper settings I used, whether both are on cable select or master/slave. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I even switched the IDE cable a few times. It is always the slave/secondary drive that detects perfectly, but my main drive will rarely detect. Well, I thought that for the time being, I would use only one drive, and unplugged the secondary. I was in Windows, reinstalling my problems (the repair reverted SP1 to defaults without windows updates, DX9, WMP9, etc.) so I was installing all these updates. When I installed DX9 and rebooted, I promptly got an:
"ERROR LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM" and from this point on, the comptuer would never load Windows again.
Well, I got frustrated and thought that it was still a driver/chipset problem and decided to totally format the drive. I backed up my drive on my friend's computer and then returned my harddrive to my own computer. I then went and completely reformatted into NTFS and used the WinXP CD to install over again. However, once it finishes the format, the computer reboots. Is it supposed to do this? I can't remember if it reboots first and then loads the windows installer?
Anyway, that's not important, the problem is that windows won't install because the drive now always says "ERROR LOADING OPERATING SYSTEM" at the prompt and even now has some problems detecting the drive. It's driving me crazy and I'm afriad something is wrong with the harddrive.
I can't get anything working now and every boot comes back with the same result nomatter how many formats or repairs I attempt from the WinXP CD (both quick and slow NTFS reformats + repair attemtps). Any idea what's wrong? The drive was working perfectly just a few days ago in my old computer, and working fine (if it managed to be detected) yesterday in my new computer but it refuses to read the OS now or allow me to install a new one.
Is it the harddrive? Or the mobo? I would have to RMA my mobo back to them if that's the case, because it bought it online but I'm leaning more into my harddrive being at fault. I'd hate for it to go bad so quickly. It's only a few months old (Maxtor 7200RPM 80GB). I tried a variety of settings in the DFI Ultra Infinity Bios like turning off SATA raid (even though I have no SATA drive) or disabling HDD S.M.A.R.T. capability but I still can't get anything to work. I guess I'lk have to find somebody willing to lend me their own harddrive so I can test it in my system but are there any other solutions or diagnoses you guys can figure out? Thanks.
