Motherboards Computer Won't Boot

A few days ago I made the mistake of changing some drive letters on my rig (see spec in sig), which promptly buggered my Steam and iTunes installations, and made a general mess of the computer. Seeing as how I usually reinstall annually anyway to wipe clean any program hangovers, registry leftovers or misinstallations I might have accrued over the previous 12 months, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a total Windows reinstallation from disc. Unfortunately, at this stage things started to go really wrong.

First, the computer was unwilling to boot from CD into what I'd recognize as the Windows installation screen; instead, it booted Windows (presumably from the disc) to my desktop, as if I'd booted normally - therefore, it wasn't offering me the option of deleting my current partition to undertake a clean install. I solved this annoyance by connecting the HDD to another computer, and deleting the "System Reserved" and "C:" partitions, creating a new Primary partition over them, and fully formatting that.

With this new blank partition, I reinstalled the HDD, and attempted to get the Windows CD to reinstall Windows. Except it won't. The computer POSTs into BIOS just fine, every time, but once it begins to boot from the disc, it gets to a black screen with "Windows Is Loading Files", loads about a third of the bar, and then brings up an error screen. The error is "An unexpected I/O error has occurred." (0xc00000e9) and seems to indicate that either my CD drive or HDD is on the way out. I troubleshot that with two different HDDs (both of which work fine on another computer) and both bring up the same error, so I don't think it's the HDDs. I tried also with a Windows XP x32 Home disc, which loaded a different installation screen before bluescreening, restarting, repeat endlessly. Therefore, I don't think it's the disc.

In an attempt to discover whether it was the CD drive, I attached a different HDD preloaded with an XP installation, and attempted to boot. I figured that if it would boot into XP, then I would know that the motherboard wasn't f***ed and that the CD drive was. What I got was a split second of the Windows loading screen, then a split second of bluescreen, then a restart, repeating endlessly, much like from the installation disc.

[EDIT]I've just remembered that my BIOS is set to AHCI and the donor XP is not - I'll try setting the BIOS to whatever the default is and then try booting from the XP drive again.[/EDIT]

I must confess, I'm a bit baffled. To sum up;

1. HDDs appear fine; I've tried two with various combinations of unwritten areas, blank partitions and the like - though no completely bare drives. I checked the drives with chkdsk on the XP system and that reported no bad sectors; the BIOS reports their SMART status as OK. It seems to me that the drives aren't even being called into play.
2. CDs appear fine; I've tried two completely different OSs, even a preinstalled XP drive and that doesn't work.
3. I've double-checked and de-dusted my cable connections.
4. POSTs just fine.
5. I'm not sure how to troubleshoot the DVD drive short of replacing it, which is probably what I'll try next.

Any ideas what could be causing this? Prior to this, the computer operated just fine, so I don't even know if this is a hardware or software issue I should be on the lookout for. Any advice heartily appreciated!

 

I have had trouble in the past with installing Windows 7 due to RAM issues - would begin then fail or just hang upon copying files.

Download the Memtest ISO, boot from it and test your RAM just to be sure.

 

If memtest picks up an error, try then using only one memory stick at a time. My friend a memory problem recently and it turned out that the sticks were fine, it was one of the slots that was faulty - thats something memtest won't tell you.

Another thing you can try, disconnect anything that may not be necessary - extra drives, things connected via usb etc. Sometimes these can cause strange crashes.

Also check your BIOS settings thoroughly. Have you accidentally changed something? Try setting the BIOS back to default and then reapply your usual settings.

 

Personally I'd probably write down my bios settings and then reset the CMOS. That's if your memtest turns out ok. I'd also try replacing the internal cables. SATA, IDE ect.. If like me you build your own systems you will by now have acquired a large number of spare cables.

 

Hmm. I installed W7 onto the HDD using another computer, and it worked fine once inserted into my rig. I concluded that it must be the CD drive that was buggered, but I've just used that to install my copy of Office 2007 from disc.

Whatever it is, it appears to be fixed.

Thanks anyway!