• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

need some help with a new build

W

w33bo

Senior member
i put the system together, checked all the cables and installed windows media center, the install ran fine, except for the part where it asked for the sp2 cd, which i don't have and so i pressed cancel,
then it asked for cd 2, i put it in and it ran fine, but at the reboot screen, where the xp logo is above a loading bar, the screen stayed for at least 10 minutes, it was not frozen, the bar was still 'in progress' and moving, but it wasn't going anywhere, i then rebooted in safe mode, got to windows, logged in with the password i had set, the one thing i noticed there was that trying to click windows explorer didn't work, it was not found, is this a product of safe mode? i was in 'safe mode with networking', i then clicked restart again, and there was a disk boot error, so i tried to restart a couple times and again and it just does the same thing, i don't even get to the screen to ask me to boot in safe mode.

now i try to reinstall windows, but after i specified to boot from cd, i don't get anything anymore, even booting from the media center disc's just get me a black screen
 
w33bo, what error message do you get now when you try to boot normally? Or does it just freeze (and if so, at what point)?

When you say you try to reinstall windows, do you mean you're trying to do a repair install, and you can't get to the set-up screen? Or do you want to reformat and start from the beginning?

Are you using MCE 2005? What's your set-up?
 
it is MCE2005, i have a neo 4 sli with 2 gigs of ocz performance (3-3-3-8), a 7200.9 seagate drive, and a benq dvd-rw, i have a 7800GT, everything in a p180 antec case with a 480W neo powersupply

i got windows installed before, but restarts failed and at this point I am getting nothing, it wont even go to the windows boot screen,

i want to reinstall again (or repair...but the screen doesn't show up).

at this point I cannot get to the setup screen, i am trying to boot off the the media center DVD but all that happens after it says 'click to boot off disc' is it goes to a black screen

i don't know what to do from here, i've checked settings, and cables to make sure they are connected correctly, any help???
 
2 more things, i remember right after the MCE install (that worked great on the first time), the system blue screen, the subsequent restart worked fine until it blocked at the windows load bar, the restart after that was safe mode, and the restart after that lead to nowhere (boot disc failure)

-i disconnected the hard drive after reading another thread, and now instead of getting a black screen when i try to load windows, the setup worked, BUT i dont have a hard drive to install to when i try to load windows now.

-could the sata drive be the problem? i did load drivers when i installed
 
booting off the hard drive gets a boot disc error

help!
did i burn the HD? is that even possible...i did nothing special...
 
so booting off the cd without the HD in gets me at least the initial windows setup line on a black screen that says 'checking configuration'....then it goes completely black
 
So it sounds like you are unable then to access the set-up screen of the XP boot disk when the hard drive is connected, is that correct? Or can you access the set-up with the hard drive attached at all to reformat? It's sounding like reformatting would be the best deal, if you can.

Another possibility is to put the hard drive in another computer to check it for errors, but I don't have any ideas off the top of my head why HD errors would prevent you from even loading the set-up screen off the XP boot disk. Just to be sure, you can't get to anything from the XP disk, right? No recovery console, no set-up menu or installation options, nothing?

As an aside, the next time you install MCE 2005, the SP2 files are hidden on the first (boot) cd. When it asks for SP2 during installation, pop in disk 1 and hit okay, and it will install it. They don't explicitly state it anywhere, but all MCE 2005 comes with SP2, it's just hidden. I got lucky when I built my MCE 2005 machine and got it right the first time, because I've heard it can cause problems if it gets skipped. I don't know if the symptoms of the problems were similar to yours or not, though.

When you tried booting off the hard drive, what kind of boot error did you get?

It sounds like you're going to have a crazy system once it gets up and running man! Good luck, keep us posted what you're trying.
 
dammit, i didnt know about the sp2 thing, i cannot access the set up screen of the xp boot disc, but i do get further when the hard drive is not connected, so i cant reformat, i cannot get anything from the xp disc....i tried the ms-dos startup disc...but i have no idea how to use ms-dos so thats a dead end unless i could find some help with commands etc

i get 'a disc read error occured', please press ctrl-alt-del to restart

when the hard drive is not attached we get the blue windows load screen that asks for drivers and then installs...but no hard drive is installed so that does not help....
 
i have been doing some searching and came accross this article, which might apply read

it says everything assuming you have windows installed

i never actually booted to a 'real' copy of windows, the only one that worked (and only once, was windows safe mode)

again...i think the blue screen after i completed installation messed with something, it was a very fast blue screen/reboot, so i couldn't tell what it said, and what happened afterwards was that the windows loading screen stayed up for over 10 minutes, so i hard reset and went into safe mode, after restarting (correctly) from safe mode, i got nothing anymore, i can get into boot of cd-rom setup if the HD is not attached, but if it is attached i get nothing except the boot failure

sorry if these words are jumbled and i am repeating myself, ill clean up this thread tomorrow when i can think

thanks for any help, ill be checking often and get back as fast as possible if anybody has any tips or tricks that might do it

right now i am thinking it has got to be the HD, so maybe ill try to buy another tomorrow and see if thatll help

Daniel
 

Are you using a SATA drive? If so, are you loading the drivers for it during the windows setup? When windows setup is just starting, press F6 (you'll see the message at the bottom of setup) to provide the necessary drivers, wait a little bit and XP will ask you to provide those drivers (you'll need a floppy for this)

In the bios, you could also disable all bootable drives except for your CD-Rom from which you'll be loading windows, so that you can at least get to the windows setup.

Or make sure that the Boot order is configured correctly. If you are booting from the Nvidia controller, just choose the correct drive. If you are using the other controller, I believe you are supposed to choose "Add-in card" or something like that.
 
i cant even get to the windows set up anymore...but the first time i did load the sata drivers

the boot order is correct, but anytime the HD is connected it results in that black screen
when the HD is disconnected, the setup goes normally (asking for the drivers F6 etc...)

i tried a couple more things today, I had an IDE drive which i tried to connect,

when booting off the cd it just resulted in a black screen too

when both drives were connected (sata and ide), picking either one as the master, and tryingto boot off the cd would just block

the entry screen would say:
'booting off cd', and usually a 2nd line appears that says 'press any button now to boot off cd', but that line didn't appear, it just said disc read error, press ctrl-alt-del.

i also had a bootable windows 98 cd that i tried with both drives (individually), in both cases it just resulted in drive read errors, i couldn't even get to the install screen.

-i also tried to update the bios using a bootable floppy along with a floppy with the new bios, following the online instructions Text

that didnt lead anywhere, all i got was 'wrong command' errors, maybe i am not using dos right, but I was typing exactly what the website said.

the standard command that came up every line was

A:\>

i tried

i tried just adding ADSF712 A6728ims.210 to make A:\>ADSF712 A6728ims.210
and i tried A:\>A:\ADSF712 A6728ims.210

with my respective numbers (i checked typos a million times, they were the right commands, but I wasn't getting anything)

i think i can rule out the problem being the HD, the floppy works, the DVD works, and i think the PS cannot be the problem, the graphics card is also not the problem, so that just leaves the MOBO and the memory, I am using dual channel OCZ performance 3-3-3-8 in slots 1 and 2, but i dont think that would be the problem

i do think the mobo might be the problem, but it does post and i can get into the BIOS with ease, so is that a possibility?

what should i try next?

ps the floppy boot install did not work
downloading this file and running it would not work when i tried to load it to floppies on my laptop with a floppy drive, the only thing that happened was the command window would disappear when i typed anything, and otherwise it would just sit there waiting for a command, i tried inserting floppies before and after running that file so maybe the floppy would trigger it but nothing happened....

AAAHHH!
 
You wrote, "the part where it asked for the sp2 cd, which i don't have and so i pressed cancel". The sp2 cd is the other cd in the set, although it isn't labeled sp2 cd. You should have it and you shouldn't press cancel for the installation to go right.
 
i realise that now, i should have just switched cd's, but i pressed cancel.....i am almost positive this screwed the installation, which is the reason windows explorer did not work when i booted in safe mode,
what do i do next though? did i permanently screw anything? time to send back the motherboard?, the hard drive?... everything i try leads to a dead end with a black screen
 
It sounds really weird.

This shouldn't be it, but you can try it anyway. Clear the Bios CMOS. Remove the motherboard's battery and swith jumper position for a few seconds, then put everything back, battery and jumper.

Make sure that under boot devices, everything shows disabled, except for the CD-rom which should be 1st and only. ( try the second CD-Rom if you have 2)

Also, try booting from the other controller, not the Nvidia
 
ill try another controller, but i have already reset the bios cmos (there is a little red button you have to push), no jumper for that on this mobo.

ill try the 2nd and 3rd things you said, and report back later

thanks for the tips
 
gah....another update
we messed around with configurations and cables and such, and finally got the windows install screen with the hard drive plugged in (have no possible idea how it might have happened...probably an act of god), install ran fine again (this time inserting disc one when it asks for sp2 cd)
we got to windows just fine, and started the install process (installing drivers etc), so:
-nforce4 drivers first, to get internet, installed avast anti virus, then windows update, did a couple reboots (it is still set to boot from cd-rom, but skips it if you do not click 'any button', so it is booting in actuality off the HD.
-we did a couple reboots, installed the graphics, drivers

issues:
-we got a blue screen, this one: http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/...-Blue-Screen-of-Death-please-help.html
but just restarted and it worked

then after a few more reboots we decided to switch the boot order floppy>HD>Cd-rom,
this screwed everything up, it got stuck at the load screen again

from then on we could not get into windows anymore (even by switching the boot order back)

so we tried a windows repair, DSKCHK came up with an error, which i dont remember if we fixed or not with DSKCHK /f, but we just decided to reinstall again, which is what we are doing now

so...what seems to be the problem is the boot order, but the blue screen is definately a hardware problem that has to do with IRQ, anyone care to explain how to fix this? are there any settings we should check/change in windows when it loads up again to fix this...stability is the problem now

at least now we can get to the windows install screen when the HD is connected, so we are installing again,
does anyone know if it will cause problems in the long run if boot from CD-rom is permanently chosen....even if we do not use it (by just not clicking when the option comes up, and letting it default to the HD)

hoping this will work...but not knowing what is causing the problem.....

this is so frustrating,

i guess we wont be sending the MOBO back yet, maybe well send the HD back next week if we cant get WMCE2005 to load properly....
 
install worked and we got to windows desktop, it blue screened on reboot and now the infinite loading bar stays up forever..>>>!>!!>>!>!>!
 
I had a million problems when I first installed MCE 2005 with an SLI Premium.
I probably installed windows 6-7 times.

Make sure you upgrade the bios to the latest available. You can do it very easily with the Asus Update software. Make sure bios are at default settings.

Install the Nforce 4 software 6.70 (you may want to skip the installation of the Nvidia IDE driver software, some people say it causes boot problems) (not in my case)

Then do all windows updates, except for the hardware 1 (do not install the Silicon RAID controller driver unless you are using RAID)

Connect your SATA drive to the very first port in the NVIDIA controller.

That is what I did!
 
so after doing a couple more installations one ran well...with no blue screens, everything is now installed, but i am scared to run the bios update, and the boot order is still cd-rom/HD/floppy, will this cause any problems in the long run?

any comments?
 
If it works that way, then at least it's working, and I can certainly understand your hesitancy to fiddle with it any more. Did you try changing the boot order or booting without the CD in now that it's working? If everything is installed, with proper drivers, XP patches, etc., and working, it may be stable now. Glad to hear it's working for the time being at least. Good luck!
 
is still frustrating because i have no idea what we changed or fixed, or what was the problem before, and if it is still there, i guess that is the nature of building yourself, but i am not confident this system will hold up...i guess just regular back ups, and if it screws up again well start from the beginning
 
I can certainly understand it's frustrating. Have you tried booting from the HD at all, or w/out the XP disk in, just to see what happens?
 
yes....it is booting from the harddrive, but the boot order is CDrom/HD/floppy, as long as you dont click the option to boot off cd then it wont, the computer works normally now, but it just seems 'fragile', know what i mean? im not going to touch it unless something bad happens
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top