Help - Can't install any OS

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Phas3Zer0

n00b
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Oct 11, 2011
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This is what happened. First off I'm running Windows 7 64bit. I downloaded a password protected RAR archive and then downloaded a password cracking program to get the password. I scanned both files and they were clean. About 30 seconds into trying to crack the password my computer rebooted. It then proceeds to start windows normally or to restore settings. I try both and either the computer will just sit there and the screen shuts off or it restarts. I tried all the F8 options and nothing worked. I then tried to re-install the OS and while the cd loads files and it gets to the Starting Windows 7 screen the monitor goes blank and just sits there. I decided to give win xp, 98, vista, various linux operating systems and the same thing happens. With a modified version of Win xp for external devices I was able to get to the partition screen and wiped and partitioned the disk. I was able to do a install but received an "system32/hal.sys is corrupt or missing." Not sure what else to do... Any suggestions?
 
Different hard drive or cpu?

I assume your cpu was under 100% load. It could have been damaged if it got too hot. I would also try installing an OS to a different hard drive. I might also boot your favorite version of linux from a flash drive. You could then do some stability checks to determine if the problem is with the hard drive or your other hardware.
 
If you can boot into a Linux LiveCD desktop, zero out the MBR of your hard drive with the following command (Do this only if you know what I'm talking about and you know how to tell which hard drive is which):

Assuming your hard drive is /dev/sda (you can check with # fdisk -l:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

After that, try and reinstall Win7. Let us know.
 
I've tried Backtrack, Ubuntu, Knoppix, and Slackware. While loading the same thing happens. Monitor out of sync or restart. Gonna try Arch Bang. Only thing that has worked so far is Hiren's Ultimate Boot CD where I'm able to run mini xp. If it was the drive causing the issue I don't think the computer would even be able to detect it, and I'm able to format it. Could possibly be a video card related issue? It seems to me when the OS attempts to use some of the higher level functions of the video card in order to display something other then text it goes out of sync. I'm gonna try out another video card and see if that works.
 
can you boot into a recovery console with either the recovery partition or your win 7 dvd?
 
Get yourself a WinPE 3.0 disc, only have the boot drive connected, boot from the WinPE 3.0 disc and run Diskpart-->Select Disk 0-->Clean-->Exit-->restart the computer. See if that helps. I'm not sure if Diskpart is in the Recovery console, if it is, boot from your Windows 7 installation disc and run Diskpart and the other commands I listed in that order. I'm suggesting only having one drive installed so you don't have to worry about the other commands to figure out your target disk prior to selecting it. Running that Clean command will reset the disk to a state where it is blank/like new.
 
I assume you have learned your lesson on downloading password protected RAR files not intended for you.
 
Sounds like you got yourself a nasty little infection. Were you able to overwrite/erase the MBR? I've seen quite a few nasties around that will write your MBR and cause things like this to come up.

As some others have mentioned, you can just zero out the drive as well.
 
I'm on the bus so I can't say for sure but im oretty sure that windows has a fixmbr utility to correct these issues as well. Writing all zeros is a totally viable option but can take a while to complete.
 
Hey guys. So have spent a lot of time troubleshooting this issue and now believe it to be a hardware related issue to the motherboard. It may have just been happenstance that it happened at the same time I was trying to crack the rar file.

I took out the hard drive and tested it in another machine and it works fine. Ran a OS install cd with only the cd-rom drive and same thing happens. So I started taking hardware out one at a time to isolate any hardware issues. I re-seated the ram and the computer wouldn't boot. tried 1 stick and it booted, tried the other stick by itself and wouldn't. So possibly a bad stick of ram now. However, with 1 good stick same issue happens. Went through the bios settings and when I manually set the CPU cores from 6 to 1 it would get to the starting windows screen and just freeze, but no restart or blank screen. I have had issues with this same motherboard in the past and had to RMA it 3 times because of faulty mosfets. I'm going to get another board to test and let you all know if it works.
 
Glad you got it fixed. I just ran into a wierd issue myself with a OCZ Vertex SSD that I've had for a while. I flashed it to 1.7 firmware and all was well in my system with an Nvidia 780i chipset. I moved the drive to an older Athlon X2 system and the drive had all sorts of issues during bootup, waking up from sleep or dropping out at various times. I would never suspect a drive to have issues between different motherboards with the exception of transfer rates due to the controller being used. Oh well.
 
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