Computer upgrade nightmare

[KYSnowcat]

I finally got my new parts in yesterday (xp2100, 2 256 MB Geil PC 3500, Chaintech Nforce2 MB) and put them in my computer. The first time I had memory problems but resolved those I think.

Now I can get past the mem check, ide find and when it starts to boot into windows I get an blue error screen stating "boot device inaccessible". I have tried two different HD's one with windows 2k and one with windows xp, the xp HD I get a blue error screen but its gone so fast I have no idea what it says. Then it reboots. I have tried changing the ide cables, changing ide channels, nothing seems to work.

Is is possibly a software problem that could be resolved by reinstalling xp?

Thanks
Jason

One of these days I'll be able to upgrade my computer without some stupid glitch every single time.

 

[RemyCanad]

Can you boot from a CD? I would try and re-install WinXP on some HD and see what happens. I am wondering if its your IDE on the motherboard.

 

[AMDExtremeist]

Start by dissconnecting everything, just run

ram
cpu
video
and the HD

its prolly a HD problem, but it sounds like theres another device that needs to be booted and its not booting.

 

[AMDExtremeist]

 

[datallah]

What it sounds like... is that it is trying to load a driver for something that is core to windows' bootup process and it doesn't load correctly.

With a significant change in hardware, i've seen this happen many times.

The most successful, but somewhat time consuming solution that i've found is to run a repair install of windows. You can do this by booting your windows disk and choosing "Repair" (R) at the appropriate time.

 

[AMDExtremeist]

Might work, might not. If all fails, FDISK, and reformat.

 

[SwampsterFL]

Too many changes all at once, and XP will not even try and boot. You might get away with a repair/reinstall, but most likely you are going to have to start all over again.