Computer problem troubling me for several days

BlakeJustBlake

Junior Member
Nov 29, 2006
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Background: Awhile ago, a few months ago or so in fact, I got a lot of new stuff for my computer. New motherboard, video card and 1 GB of RAM. Everything has been going perfectly for quite awhile. I haven't done anything new my computer or changed any settings or anything, but one morning I turned it on and it was booting up normally but then it came to a screen before the loading Windows screen for XP (with the blue lines going across the bar) that said something to the effect of "Windows can't start properly because of either a hardware change or power problem. Choose the way you want to start Windows:" and it lists Safe Mode, Last Best Settings, Normally and a couple of others. I try to start it in every way but it just restarts and comes back to the same screen so I get down to the dirty work of trying to figure out what's going on. I tried to think of the very last thing that possibly could've changed something on my computer, and I couldn't think of anything except shutting it down. I'm generally too lazy to just tell the system to shut down so I always hold the power button until the computer cuts off all the power. I guess that this probably has something to do with it and I guess that it has caused a problem with the hard drive. It still recognizes everything correctly in the BIOS so I don't think it's a controller or IDE cable problem.

So I get on my other computer and download FreeBSD and burn it and pop it in and boot it up through the CD-ROM and it doesn't work. I guess that it might just be a problem with the CD or something, so I borrow SUSE Linux from someone and pop that in and it doesn't work once more, along with Ubuntu or anything I try to boot it up with. Next I took the hard drive and put it into another computer that has been working and booting worked on that one. Now I'm a little confused. If it's not the hard drive what is it? Next thing I consider is the controller once more so I take another hard drive and put it into the computer and try the same thing and it doesn't work in the same way. Then I put the old hard drive back in with a new IDE cable and in a different controller on the motherboard, FreeBSD loaded further than it did before but stopped and then when I restarted and tried again it wouldn't start, just like it didn't before. Then I changed the CD-ROM drive, hoping for a miracle, and then when it would go to the BIOS loading screen and said "Boot from CD:" it sat there and then said that it couldn't load from that CD, worse from before, doesn't even recognize that the CD-ROM has a CD in it. This is everything I have tried, and I've run out of ideas. Does anyone have any idea at all?
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
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Welcome to the Forums :) What brand & model is your motherboard?
 

mechBgon

Super Moderator<br>Elite Member
Oct 31, 1999
30,699
1
0
It sounds like your ATA controller might be failing. That would jive with your observations so far: your Windows installation can't boot, you can't install any OS onto that drive, and when you swap IDE controllers so your CD-ROM drive is on that connector, it can't boot either. My suggestion would be to back up your important data off that hard drive in the working computer, then consider replacing the motherboard.

By the way, it's not normal to transplant a hard drive with WinXP on it, and have it successfully boot up on an alien motherboard that it wasn't expecting.
 

BlakeJustBlake

Junior Member
Nov 29, 2006
3
0
0
It has IDE and SATA controllers, do you think that it might work for me if I were to replace my hard drive to one with SATA then the controllers would work?

Also, I wasn't putting it in there to boot up, rather to try and put something else on it.