Any way to erase Via 4 in 1s on a Win XP partition outside of the OS?

[Spudd]

My cousin just switched his motherboard from a Via chipset to an NForce 2. It doesn't seem to want to boot into Windows, as it just keeps saying there was a problem with the hardware setup. Is there anyway to get into Winows XP Prof.? If not, is there a way to repair the windows install WITHOUT having to do a full blown hard drive format and reinstall? Thanks.

 

[Smilin]

What you what to do is called an 'inplace upgrade'.

Boot to your XP cd, provide drivers with F6 as needed.

At 'welcome to windows setup' press enter to setup. It will see your previous installation. Press 'R' to do a repair.

It will run through the rest of setup, but you'll notice it won't prompt you for any information during GUI mode setup. When complete your program files and data will all be intact. The only adverse side effect is your 'documents and settings' won't be readily visible. You won't see any items left on your desktop for instance. You can then recover these by finding your old account in 'C:\documents and settings'

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Smilin

What you what to do is called an 'inplace upgrade'.

Boot to your XP cd, provide drivers with F6 as needed.

At 'welcome to windows setup' press enter to setup. It will see your previous installation. Press 'R' to do a repair.

It will run through the rest of setup, but you'll notice it won't prompt you for any information during GUI mode setup. When complete your program files and data will all be intact. The only adverse side effect is your 'documents and settings' won't be readily visible. You won't see any items left on your desktop for instance. You can then recover these by finding your old account in 'C:\documents and settings'

Hmm. He tried that, but he said it keeps switching between "Sorry for the inconvenience, but windows could not be started successfully" It doesn't seem like it's even trying to boot from the CD.

 

[Smilin]

You're going to have to lay down the anti-dumb on him.

He's gotta be able to boot to that CD or he is done.

Be sure it's a real copy of XP, no burned copies, no OEM-reinstall copies.
Be sure his BIOS is set to boot from the CDRom then hard drive. He should be seeing a "press any key to boot from CD..." prompt.

Edit: If your anti-dumb skills are not powerful enough you can have him download a copy of the XP boot floppies from Microsoft. You can also create them from the CD.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Smilin
You're going to have to lay down the anti-dumb on him.

He's gotta be able to boot to that CD or he is done.

Be sure it's a real copy of XP, no burned copies, no OEM-reinstall copies.
Be sure his BIOS is set to boot from the CDRom then hard drive. He should be seeing a "press any key to boot from CD..." prompt.

Edit: If your anti-dumb skills are not powerful enough you can have him download a copy of the XP boot floppies from Microsoft. You can also create them from the CD.

I got him to get into Windows Setup by hitting the space bar, with Windows booting up off the CD. It's a verified legit copy, he just purchased of Win XP Prof. It seems as though it gets to the part where it says, Windows Setup is loading files, with the customary blue screen, but then it just seems to hang there, and doesn't seem to be loading any files. Argh.....Thanks for the help Smilin. I appreciate it.

 

[Smilin]

If it's getting to the part where it says 'setup is loading files' but never makes it to 'welcome to setup' then he's got some kinda hardware issue going on that is unrelated to his original problem. It's not even looking at his previous VIA drivers at that point.

Couple things to be sure of..
Check for smudges or scratches on the disc.
Blow out the drive with a can of air.
Go down to a single stick of memory and the bare minimal components.

If it's an SATA motherboard he's going to need to have drivers handy on a diskette. He'll have to hit the F6 key almost immediately after the screen turns blue.



Hanging at the text mode of setup with 'setup is loading files..' is bad.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Smilin

If it's getting to the part where it says 'setup is loading files' but never makes it to 'welcome to setup' then he's got some kinda hardware issue going on that is unrelated to his original problem. It's not even looking at his previous VIA drivers at that point.

Couple things to be sure of..
Check for smudges or scratches on the disc.
Blow out the drive with a can of air.
Go down to a single stick of memory and the bare minimal components.

If it's an SATA motherboard he's going to need to have drivers handy on a diskette. He'll have to hit the F6 key almost immediately after the screen turns blue.



Hanging at the text mode of setup with 'setup is loading files..' is bad.

I was reading that it could be that the onboard sound, it's an Epox 8RDA3I, could cause installation problems. I was thinking of getting a Maxtor boot floppy, and nuking the drive, then starting all over. What do you think?

 

[Smilin]

I wouldn't nuke the drive. Definately wouldn't use a maxtor utility to do it either.

Disable or remove everything you can get your hands on. See if you can boot into setup long enough to drop to recovery console (hit 'r' at welcome to setup, then 'c' for console) and run a chkdsk /P

Try the inplace upgrade again.

If you are still unable to get setup to even make it to 'welcome to setup' then you've got a hardware problem going on. Losing your data won't make the hardware problem go away.

Nuking the drive would only be useful if there is something horribly corrupt on that disk which is unlikely. You can test this by simply removing the hard drive and booting to windows setup. You obviously won't be able to do anything but if you can make it to 'welcome to setup' with the hard drive out then nuking the drive would be considered as an option.



edit: FYI, if you suspect onboard sound (or any onboard component) simply disable it in bios until the inplace upgrade is done, then reenable it later and let it PNP detect.

Edit #2: even if you can make it into setup with the drive out, nuking it wouldn't be my first guess. I would suspect a controller or cabling problem first.

 

[Spudd]

Yep, it's the hard drive. I had him disconnect the IDE cable, and Windows Setup went through just fine. ARgthh123h ......lol

 

[Smilin]

Ok, now you have some more "fooling" to do.

First, are we talking ATA or SATA drives here?

If it's ATA, hard set the jumpers on the CDRom and Hard drive. Dont' use cable select.
Experiment and try different controllers on the motherboard. Try different cables.
With a little work you may be able to isolate a bad controller or truly isolate the drive as bad.

If it's SATA you're going to have to use the F6 driver. Without, setup won't complete if you can get it started and it *may* not even start right.

 

[Spudd]

We're talking ATA 133. It's a Maxtor. It had Win XP Prof. already installed and working, but he upgraded the motherboard and CPU and this crap happened.

 

[Smilin]

Yeah, by swapping motherboards you've changed mass storage controllers and possibly hals. Even with all the other chipset changes that's enough to cripple an OS. An inplace upgrade will *very* likely fix this but you've got to be able to run setup to do it.

Get his HDD set as 'master' and the cdrom as 'slave'. Hook them up to one of the ATA controllers and disable the other one in BIOS. If no luck, repeat for the other controller. If this doesn't work, set them both to 'master', reenable both controllers and put one on each.

If you can get far enough into setup, drop to recovery console and do that chkdsk. Retry the inplace.

If you've done all the above with no luck, RMA the motherboard. It happens.

Good luck.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Smilin
Yeah, by swapping motherboards you've changed mass storage controllers and possibly hals. Even with all the other chipset changes that's enough to cripple an OS. An inplace upgrade will *very* likely fix this but you've got to be able to run setup to do it.

Get his HDD set as 'master' and the cdrom as 'slave'. Hook them up to one of the ATA controllers and disable the other one in BIOS. If no luck, repeat for the other controller. If this doesn't work, set them both to 'master', reenable both controllers and put one on each.

If you can get far enough into setup, drop to recovery console and do that chkdsk. Retry the inplace.

If you've done all the above with no luck, RMA the motherboard. It happens.

Good luck.

Just as an update, my cousin just gave up and bought another HDD. He's sending this one back to me, so I'll just wipe it and use it for an HTPC I was thinking of building. Thanks for the help anyways Smilin. :beer:

 

[Smilin]

No worries. Sometimes problems are just worth throwing some cash at. It's much cheaper in the long run than frustration.

 

[Spudd]

Originally posted by: Smilin
No worries. Sometimes problems are just worth throwing some cash at. It's much cheaper in the long run than frustration.

Hehe. True.