new computer windows install problem

M

mtbaird

Gawd
Joined
Dec 12, 2003
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677
A friend just built a computer and we cant get windows to install. He went through the main installation and then when it got to the part where it reboots itself it did that, POSTed and then didnt continue with the installation.

It just sits at a black screen for a long time and doesnt do anything after that.

Maybe its becasue nothing is showing on IDE Primary 1. The SATA one we installed windows to is shown as IDE 3 or something.

We cant get it to boot from CD now either. Any suggestions?
 
Did you press F6 while installing windows and loaded SATA drivers for windows setup while prompted?

Is the SATA disk the first on bios boot order??

oldmx
 
uhh no we didnt press f6 when installing. is that our main problem? we can boot into safe mode now but not normally.

are these drivers on the motherboard cd or should they have come with the sata drive?
 
If you can boot into safe mode, it's not an issue of the drivers during F6. First off, it sounds like you have the BIOS configured all wrong. Your SATA drive should be showing as the primary master, and your optical drives should be showing as secondary master and slave, if one exists. That's why you can't boot from CD. If you have XP installed on the drive, and it won't boot, get the computer booting from the CD and run a repair.
 
aight well we stayed up until 4 am trying to fix it. we got XP installed somehow and it was working except when we restarted the computer would go to the black screen again and he'd have to press the power button and resetart t he computer. and then choose from the menu that said "last known good configuratoin" and "start windows normally".

he had to hit start windows normally and then it would work. but we chose "last known config" one time and now it wont even boot into windows. we are going to f' with it some more and try all the suggestions in this thread though. if anyone has any other ideas lemee know
 
since you've got nothing on this machine.. I'd start over..

clear the bios and set it back to defaults...

make sure everything is plugged and TIGHT..
Check the bios and make sure and see if you need to enable sata. some do some dont..
Change the boot order to boot from cd first. boot and start the load hitting f6 to add sata drivers if needed..format and load windows.. finish and change bios back to boot from the sata driver as primary and then tell us what's up
 
ok i'm in the middle of hulksterjoe's idea ^^^^ and i'll follow up when Windows is done. but here is background info about what's been going on in case this helps with anything:

-Ram is good and passed memtest86 (just to be sure we can rule this out, I switched it out with ram from another pc and still had the same issues).

-Clearing CMOS didnt help

The psu (newegg link ) has dual 12v, according to newegg the outputs are +12V1@15A, +12V2@17A (can't see on the actual unit becuase the sticker is on the back side). Every power cord that's needed is plugged in tightly (2 cd drives, 2 hard drives, floppy, pci-e, both mobo cables, 2 fans)

Right now im wiping the drive (with KillDisk, a really cool program btw) and doing a fresh install of Windows. Please keep suggestions coming, thanks.
 
Ok after doing everything (wipe drive, reinstall Windows with F6/raid drivers from floppys) I'm at the same problem again. General consesus seems to be that a problem is with my boot drive being listed as Third Master.
Here is the bottom line of what I want >> one SATA drive for boot/windows drive, one IDE drive for storage.

And here is what's going on in BIOS >>

bios19uy.jpg


Notice the Samsung (IDE) is primary and the WD (SATA) is Third Master. I want WD to be my boot/windows drive. So I go to Primary Master and push Enter and get this:

bios26hj.jpg


And I've tried changing things in here to no avail, not really sure what to do at this screen. Also for reference, here are the boot order screens:

bios31mf.jpg


Hard disk boot priority:

bios43xx.jpg


And now I'm stuck. Thanks for your help.
 
scud133 said:
Ok after doing everything (wipe drive, reinstall Windows with f6/sata drivers) I'm at the same problem again. I cant figure out how to make the SATA my primary master. I'm taking pics of the bios and i'll have those up in a sec, maybe there's something I'm missing. More ideas needed, thx.
Click to expand...
Check the SATA ports, there should be seperate ports for RAID and non-RAID depending on the board. RTFM.
 
Phoenix86 said:
Check the SATA ports, there should be seperate ports for RAID and non-RAID depending on the board. RTFM.
Click to expand...

Manual says SATA 1-4 are the south bridge (nforce4 ultra) and SATA 5-8 are Silicon Image SATARAID5, and a warning that a SATA port can only run one hard drive. And that's it.... right now my drive is plugged into SATA 1. I dont think this is the issue since the hard drive was working before and running windows and everything.
 
If the computer only boots into safemode (I'm not sure if it did by reading...someone said something about safemode), I think it's a driver issue or some service starting up when Windows loads.

Your Bios is configured right. SATA ports controlled by the NF4 are 3rd-6th master. As long as your SATA drive is set to run SATA instead of RAID, you shouldn't have problems with the drives. The F6 thing is only needed if you're using RAID on newer boards.

I would try disconnecting your PATA drive until you get the other one setup properly for one thing. Next I would try installing newest NF4 drivers from Nvidia (don't use NV IDE driver). If you can get that far. Also get newest video card drivers and install them too.
 
Have you tried disconnecting all drives other than your CD, floppy, and boot drive? Install xp on the boot drive, then try adding your ide drive? Couldn't hurt at this point, and may simpify things.
 
Ok, just got the latest NF4 drivers, and all my drivers for everything else are the latest. I unplugged the other hard drive.

Here is what I have to do to get into Windows:
Every time I reboot or start up the computer, it appears to freeze after POST. There is still a signal going to my monitor, but the screen is all black, no blinking cursor. While it is frozen like this, if I hit the reset button on the case, the computer reboots and I am prompted with the safe mode/start normally options. From here I can return to windows normally and it works like a charm. Basically, I can never have a normal restart, I always have to be nearby to physically push the reset button after it attempts to reboot on its own.

So I can get into Windows through this work-around method and that's what has been the biggest problem. I've tried everything you guys have suggested so far and I still haven't seen a normal reboot. Is there any way to check the hard drive itself for any phsyical errors/damage? Or something along those lines?

Also, Windows has now designated this drive as G: .... what gives?
blah3jx.jpg
 
Hmm, what are those removable discs x and y? Did you disconnect all USB ports, printer, everything (except keyboard and mouse if applicable), and the secondary optical drive?

Try it with the absolute bare minimum connected. The WD has diagnostic utilities you can download from their website, and make into a bootable floppy to check your hard drive for errors, bad sectors etc. I,m assuming your format, and size, and file system, is proper for the the boot drive
 
Oh, and reformat and start over, to keep your drive letters in order, that's something you can't change once the os is installed.
 
Oh, and reformat and start over, to keep your drive letters in order, that's something you can't change once the os is installed.
Click to expand...

Do you mean for the primary drive?

Because I only formatted part of my drive and installed WinXP to it, it was the C drive. I had a DVD burner that it called the D drive. When I formatted the rest of my hard drive, XP wanted it to be the E drive by default. But, XP allowed me to rename the D drive to E, and then name the new partition D.
 
Sounds like you have it correct. If for some reason, the boot partition with xp, is not c, then that is a problem to rename. I was looking at the screenshot, and on that system it looks like just one hard drive, and that being G, (boot partition?) with 4 other "non hard drives".

Hope this doesn't sound too confusing. I know I'm kind of confused, because it seems there are 3 different user names describing problems, are you guys all the same?
 
im pretty sure we had it intstalled one time where the boot drive was C and it was the raptor and it still didnt work properly. im not 100% on this becasue it was like 3 am but i think thats what happened
 
OK, but this time, disconnect EVERY fucking thing, usb etc, everything BUT one cd drive and the wd drive. Try it, if it doesn't work then check your wd with the bootable floppy from wd. I still don't know what those w and y removable drives are but the need to be gone for the install.

Once again, start fresh with one hard drive, reformatted. Wipe it clean of any os that may still be on that wd.
 
OK, just to clear a few things up:

1. The HDD appears to be fine in the BIOS just the way it is.
2. It doesn't matter what the boot drive letter is.

Now, I didn't see any of this anywhere in the post. Is this the first time you've installed XP on this machine? Also, if it's a new board, have you flashed up to the latest BIOS?

 
Ok to clear things up.......
-I'm the one with the computer
-Mtbaird is a friend who helped me set it up
-Empyrean I don't even know and is just doing his own thing
-Oldie >> this is a brand new self-built computer, and I've already flashed to latest bios and all latest drivers for everything

Ok I'm going to disconnect everything (fyi the removable disks are card readers) except the WD drive, one cd drive, floppy, keyboard, mouse, monitor. Then I'm going to reformat the drive and run WD's diagnostic afterwards. Then I'm going to install Windows, but I don't need to push F6 during Win install because I'm not setting up RAID. And only if I get thru all this, then I start reconnecting everything again. Kind of a lot of stuff so I want to make sure I'm not missing anything. Sound good?
 
Make sure there the wd is the master. I'm pretty sure with wd that means no jumpers for a single drive with no slave. Be sure to check to be sure
 
Yes! But I guess you could run the wd utilities either now, or if the installion fails, you should do it then. My guess is all those drives are are having driver problems and freaking out the install. If not then possibly drive problems. Just a process of elimination.
 
oboyco said:
Make sure there the wd is the master. I'm pretty sure with wd that means no jumpers for a single drive with no slave. Be sure to check to be sure
Click to expand...

Sata drives don't have master/slave settings, since Sata is one device per channel. There are usually jumpers, but they don't have anything to do w/M/S/CS settings. Just to eliminate any hdd issues, I would use the WD software to do a quick zero fill of the drive. We'll be waiting for your progress on the clean install. Best of luck!

 
Alright guys, I meticulously went through all the steps, and it's working!

Turns it out it was my card reader causing the hang up ---- I reattached each component one by one (with a reboot in between each one) and when I got to plugging in the card reader (internal usb) that's when the problem resurfaced. Thanks for all your help and wisdom... without you guys I couldn't have made this work.

In case anyone is wondering, here is the card reader. Luckily the floppy part of it is separate from the usb so I can still use it.
 
Really glad to hear it, those card readers are sometimes a bitch, with compatability and drivers. Sounds like a real ordeal, which we all go through often enough. Hope it's running well for you

Oldie, correct, I thought for some reason the wd was PATA. No jumpers on the SATA to worry about.
 
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