Busy installing XP on my finally completed new build, the spec of the machine is as follows: Intel P4 2.4ghz Asus PV48000-X mobo 2 Gb Kingston RAM (in 2 mached pairs of 512Mb) Radeon x1800 GTO 256 Mb DVI Gfx Card 74Gb WD Raptor CDROM I do have other components but i've stripped it down to the barebones to work out why it won't boot. I've just booted it up with an XP CD in the drive and began the installation, gets to the first restart and won't go any further. If you leave the PC for an hour or so then switch it on again it will start (did this and got the the 2nd restart of the install process, bit after setting user and network details), im currently waiting another hour to do the next stage of the install. Now inbetween waiting i've tried swaping the SATA cable and removing / re ordering and re installing RAM, but none of it works, dows anyone have any ideas? I have googled which is why I tried the above but nothing gives a straight answer its all just try this or that. Thanks in advance.
alright, this might be stupid, but i've been having similar problems with a wd hard drive of mine (boot issues), and i realized that my motherboard only has sata 150mb/s ports, and my drive is 300mb/s sata. Long story short i jumpered the drive to opt1 (pins 5 and 6) to force it down to 150mb/s and now it works fine so far. If thats not the case, then you might have a corrupted hard drive and you should run some tests: if you get the os installed, then download hddscan here: http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2006.01.22-HDDScan/
Did you install the SATA drivers BEFORE installing Windows? (press F6 on that split second right at the blue loading screen of Windows XP. XP doesn't support SATA (too old). So it is important to install the SATA drivers.
Im running xp on a sata drive just fine and i didn't install the drivers, although my install disk was the sp3 version....
Ok, your an exception. But, for XP SP2 disk, XP detects the SATA HDD and runs not at "full speed", except for simple SATA controllers, or the few it supports. For XP SP1 disk , you pretty much need the drivers... results are mixed between people. For me, XP installs successfully but everything is on random - like every time you run something the following will appear - : "Corrupted file", "Invalid Win32 Application", nothing occurs, the program works. For XP pre-SP1 it's critical, as I don't even think Windows can detect your HDD.
Right well i've now got XP installed and when I tried starting it up this morning it booted to the tellytubby hills, but when i tried restarting it no luck, randompkguy - i tried this but still no luck, GoodBytes - i didn't install the SATA drives at the blue screen, but because it boots, does that not mean I don't really need to?
You only need install sata drivers if the sata ports themselves aren't native. Have you checked the mode your sata ports are working in, in the bios? Are they set to sata, ahci or ide?
Like I said, doesn't mean that XP setup sees your HDD and install that your SATA controller works properly. You have to get a floppy and a floppy drive, get the SATA drivers on it (extracted) and then when you have the Blue loading setup that starts, pres F6 key when ask (look carefully at the bottom gray bar of the screen).
XP supports SATA drives if there are set to ATA in the BIOS. You only need the drivers (at F6) if they are set to AHCI (which you need if you want to "eject" the drives or have use of any other of the more advanced features). Vista however supports AHCI out the box (however, if AHCI isn't on when vista is installed, the drivers are disabled, and need enabling before switchingover to AHCI in the BIOS). - This is a general rule, there are a few exceptions. Also, if windows can see the HDD during the initial blue screened setup, it has the drivers - If it says no HDD found, then you need the drivers. However, I doubt this has anything to do with your problem. From the specs, the parts sound old - either old stock or second hand. No offence intended (if you'd even take offence to such a statement). I therefore ask, how old, and what spec, make and model is the PSU. Also it isn't entirely clear what exactly happens. I'm guessing that after the machine reboots it doesn't POST, or have anything displayed on the screen? the other option is that is does POST and displays writing etc, but just sits there. I'm guessing the former - which would also bring me back to look at your PSU.
If its more than 3 years old it could easily be the problem. common causes - Board, CPU and PSU. the fact it boots sometimes normally indicates PSU. It can also be the need for a new BIOS - what version do you have - when it does boot what chip does it say you have? The current is 0704. Though in this case, again I don't think this is the issue. 1: Seasonic 600W - please, the model number and age? 2: Does the machine POST after the re-start or do nothing?
Golygus, not a clue on the model of the PSU but it can only be just over a year old. Had a bit more of a play about last night, i tried re-installing XP and hitting F6 to install drivers but it couldn't find any to install, so i upgraded to Vista and this did nothing it still wont boot after a shutdown or restart, BUT... while i was upgrading to vista it needed to restart so i just let it keep on running and it installed vista, so im now thinking the problem might not be booting as it must have re-booted to continue the install, its not displaying anything after a shutdown or restart. does that make sense?
Most of the time, SATA operation is compatible with the same system used to talk to PATA drives. They are both AT Attachment drives. 'Fancier' modes of operation (like AHCI) need drivers ATM. Does the system POST and the BIOS hand off to the OS boot loader? Are there any beep codes? Is there a way to get checkpoint codes from the board?
Hi. Hmmm I used a have a problem like this as well as 1 work on tech helpdesk so I have seen many! I would try a BIOS reflash (painfull, but neccessary), Checking the HD on another pc (running seagate utilities) as it could be a faulty hard drive (hopefully not), or running the BIOS with defaults loaded. You can also get this problem if your windows XPdisk is a little old. Is it SP2?
SORTED Form what we can see it was the GFX card (ATI Radeon X1800 GTO) I borrowed a MSI card from the kid next door and it boots everytime now.
