MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum not booting to XP

[Vivitron]

I just put in a K8N neo2 Platinum board, along with:

-AMD Athlon 64 3400+ 939 processor
-1 gig (2x512) of Corair Value Select

Along with this is my:
-existing 400W power supply
-1 DVD-ROM
-1 CDRW
-80 gig WD HD
-Maxtor 120 Gig HD
-GeforceTi 4200 128 agp vid card
-5.1 philips surround sound card

I already have Windows XP pro on the WD hard drive, and I have had this issue before after another motherboard upgrade.

I get the full successful POST, I'm able to adjust BIOS settings, but when I get to the XP boot part, I get a flash of a blue screen and then the option to boot normally, in safe mode, etc. Even safe mode does not work. I cannot even boot to the XP recovery console through the cd-roms. I have checked all the hardware for a hardware conflict (switching things, removing unneccessary peripherals), and yet it is not any of the hardware I know of.

The last time this happened, I just recovered it through the recovery console, but this time I'm stumped.

Any ideas?

Note: I know this is bad, but 1 pin in the corner was bent, and I straightened it. It went in ok, and is detected well. Could this play a part in it?

 

[Demo24]

you ahve to reinstall windows when you replace mobos

 

[Vivitron]

How can I do that if I can't even use the cd drive?

 

[Rhagz]

you dont "have" to reinstall windows when you replace a mobo.. sure its nice to clear drivers and such, but i have changed mobos plenty of times using the same windows installation.

 

[Rhagz]

OK, as for your problem.. is your chip one of the new 90nm ones? if so, you may have to boot with just one ram stick until you flash the bios to a newer revision that supports the winchester core.

 

[Dustswirl]

Just in case you didn't use this way: Try connecting only the CDRW to the IDE2(master) dont use the DVD and your WD to the IDE1(master) and take a shot with WinXP! or try the opposite (using only the DVDROM as secondary master) good luck
cheers

 

[Vivitron]

Still not working...

What if I use XP Setup Boot [floppy] disks?

 

[JonB]

Do a WinXP repair installation. You new motherboard is sufficiently different that it crashes when it loads the motherboard drivers. I had the same problem when I changed my last motherboard. The HAL must be rebuilt (Hardware Abstraction Layer).

 

[Vivitron]

If I can't install XP via my CD drive, how can I install it? I can't seem to boot from either CD drive.

 

[slinky22]

You ever figure this out? I'm curious what happened.

 

[XRaider]

Have you gone into the BIOS yet and changed the boot-order?! MB's typically boot: 1st- removable drive (floppy) 2nd: HDD 0 and then 3rd - CDROM. Move the CDrom to the 1st boot device. Shouldn't be that hard.

 

[integspec]

XRaider is right. Try changing the boot priority to CDROM and restart with XP CD inside.

I installed my system few days ago, (very similar to yours except 3500+, 512MB and 9800 Pro) and the new setup didn't boot with my old XP. So I just did a fresh installation and all is well.

Btw, there was a strange problem of system not booting in the begining. So I cleared CMOS and restarted then it booted and in CMOS, I loaded optimized settings and it refused to boot again. So I loaded Fail Safe settings and brought all the performance values down. Now my XP is good and ready, I can start tweaking the CMOS again.

I'm sure most of you know this already, usually it's better to deal with fewer variables at a time when you work in a situation which is completely new to you.

Try it and let us know your feedback. Good luck / Cheers.

 

[Vivitron]

Well, it finally worked.

Turned out I needed to install Windows via the floppy drive (6 floppy disks), then it went into the CD install(I did a clean install). The thing that makes me wonder is that Microsoft says at some point in the future you can't use floppies, but rather the PXE network and CD boot method, which is strange to me.

In my situation, it was the only way to reinstall XP.