New rig now refuses to boot into Windows!

[yasher]

So, a little background first:

I built a new rig a little less than a month ago, and I had some problems with it, including having to RMA my video card. After some help from some folks here and at XS, I got it 24hrs Orthos stable @ 7*450.

P5B Deluxe w/e6600, cooled w/Tuniq Tower
Radeon X1950 PRO (Waiting on X1950XT replacement to arrive from NewEgg)
Seagate 320, Raptor 150
SB XtremeGamer
Abit Wifi Card
Antec 900

With the way the 900's side fan mount is situated, combined with the size of the Tuniq, I couldn't get a stock Yate Loon 120 on there, so I cut part of the fan's housing away, and finally got it installed. I couldn't figure a decent way to measure it before cutting, so I was cutting a piece away, and then trying to fit the side panel back on. I didn't realize it until the 3rd or 4th time I did it, but when I was pushing the side panel into place, part of the fan was pushing on the top of the Tuniq, torquing it a bit to one side. Once I got the fan where I wanted it, and it wasn't applying any pressure to the cooler, I attempted to boot up.

Keep in mind, this machine was stable, and the only thing I changed was the side mounted fan.

When I booted up, the system got all the way to the end of the Windows XP startup screen, blanked out and rebooted. After trying safe mode and Last Known Good Config, I went into the bios and backed everything back down to stock, and tried again. Same problem. Okay, I figured I'd screwed up the contact between the heatsink and the cooler, or something, so I pulled the heatsink, cleaned it and the processor, reseated it, applied Arctic Silver 5 again, and started the process over.

The system said something about a new processor, so I hit F1 and told it to use stock settings. Rebooted, and it did the exact same thing. Alright, something's really wrong. I grabbed a bootable WinXP install CD, tossed it in the drive, fixed my Boot settings and booted from the CD. XP Setup came up, and I decided I was gonna install Windows onto a different partition... but there was an issue.

My Raptor's partitions are broken up as follows:
- 20GB WinXP
- 25GB Vista
- 100GB Stuff

Windows Setup was only seeing the 20GB WinXP partition as a 15GB partition, and corrupted, at that. I know for a fact that the partition had about 5GB of data on it, so that helps account for the 15GB, but what the hell is going on there?

I tried to install XP onto my Vista partition, but setup told me it couldn't install with the WinXP(C) partition in the state it was in.

Summary
- Rig @ stock reboots right before Windows finishes starting up
- WinXP Setup thinks one of my partitions is all screwed up

I'm happy to provide answers to any questions that might help solve this problem. This is the first rig I've built in like 4 years, and the first time I've ever overclocked. I'm worried that I've screwed somethin' up. Is my Raptor suddenly bad? Is my processor fried? Or is it something simple that I'm just not seeing?

Thanks for any help, folks... I'm sorta freakin' out.

 

[WoodButcher]

If your dual booting w/ vista can't you use vista to reformat that 20 gig xp partition?

 

[Markbnj]

There are so many things that could be wrong here. If you were really forcing the cooler to one side significantly you could have cracked a pin, or a solder joint where the socket connects to the motherboard. Especially with a tall unit that increases leverage. Or that might have had no effect at all, and instead you loosened a card or cable, or created a short with the case somehow. You're just going to have to tear it down and build it back up piece by piece. I would get the whole thing out of the case and connect the components up on a non-conductive surface, then see if it will boot with just the keyboard, mouse, vid card, and primary disk. It could even be that the new fan caused a voltage problem. If you have problems in the basic configuration you may need to remove the processor and inspect the pins. You may need to test a different motherboard at some point.

Sounds like you manhandled it a bit, to be honest. I don't want to preach at you, because your situation sucks and I know what it's like (especially if this is your primary computer). But it's a good lesson to learn: they aren't meant to be pushed and shoved like that.