change motherboard, now my winxp won't boot normally,pls. help

[krisoto]

i change motherboard from a7v333 to a7n8x deluxe. i put all my old dvd drive,winxp ide hard drive.and ati 9700 pro. all it does is goes to like safe mode but does not boot up all the way to the win xp desktop.

everything set in optimal. memory freq is 166 my cpu is 2000xp mushkin 512 pc-2700

 

[Peter]

This is normal. If you change out your primary mass storage controller, XP will be unable to find its boot device right after it booted the operating system kernel.

Switching from a VIA to an NVidia chipset, you did just that.

 

[amdxborg]

Happend to me as well with win2k. Seems with win2k and xp, when the mobo is changed, a re-install is required...

 

[mechBgon]

Try this:

• Put your Windows CD into the CD-ROM drive and boot from CD
• When the Windows Setup begins, it asks if you want to do a Repair, or if you want to install Windows. Choose Install.
• Setup will get ready to install, and then it will examine your hard drive and see the C:\WINDOWS folder (for WinXP) or the C:\WINNT folder (for Win2000Pro), and it will ask if you want this existing installation repaired? Now choose Repair and let it proceed.

This should leave your files and programs in place while getting Windows familiar with the new hardware. It still may have some problems afterwards, but at least you can save any important files before doing a proper full-format reinstallation of Windows. Hope that helps

 

[krisoto]

so i would format my hard drive and reinstalled winxp then,thanks. but how come it went to pre-safe mode like:
safe mode
safe mode with network
safe mode with config
last known good
and normal
wht is that?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: krisoto
so i would format my hard drive and reinstalled winxp then,thanks. but how come it went to pre-safe mode like:
safe mode
safe mode with network
safe mode with config
last known good
and normal
wht is that?

That is what Windows often does when it tries to boot up and fails. My advice above does NOT mean reformatting. Reformatting the hard drive erases the data. If you do not have any files or folders that you want to save, then you can reformat. If you DO want to save some files or folders, then you should follow the steps I gave above, or reinstall your old motherboard temporarily so you can save the files and folders.

 

[Peter]

That's because the bootstrap process, until the Windows kernel has been loaded into RAM, has the BIOS handle the hard disk access. Up to that point, all boards have a compatible software interface, with the hardware specific things handled inside BIOS. As soon as the booting OS starts using its own stuff, it needs to have the hardware specific drivers.