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Windows Install issues on a new build

R

risingfish

Junior Member
Hello all, I've been using and working with computers for many years and consider myself highly experienced in computers. Last week I decided to upgrade my HTPC with a new Mobo/Processor (Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-SH2 + Athlon X2 4400+) and RAM (Crucial Ballistix 800Mhz). Picked up everything for a reasonable cost and I installed it last night. Everything was looking good, I went through the BIOS and set the appropriate settings and rebooted. I even commented to my girlfriend how it's amazing that people are so scared of computers when they are so easy to work on... 🙂

Well, the BIOS POSTed fine, and then when through the various other screens this Mobo does. But then it went to the screen" Your computer did not shut down properly etc... Boot into Safe Mode or Normal?" I chose normal and the PC rebooted... So when it came up again I chose Safe Mode and it rebooted again. Fortunately in Safe Mode it lists out the drivers as it loads them and I noticed it was always choking on gagpx30??.sys. After some quick Googleing the best course of action seemed to be pop in the Windowx XP disk and do a manual repair by using the cmd prompt to rename the driver so it doesn't load anymore.

Seemed easy enough so I popped in my XP Pro disk and rebooted. I watched the reboot process and and watched the drivers loading. It looks like it loaded all the drivers correctly. Then when it said Starting Windows if got a BSOD and it said it had some sort of issue with a drive controller. Ok, so maybe it needs the SATA drivers on the Windows disk. It was easy enough to slipstream them onto the disk and when I finished I pop the new disk into the drive and booted up. The same thing happened. I don't want to turn this into a novel so to wrap this story up, I tried:

* Rolled back the BIOS to Failsafe bu no luck
* MEMTEST86 - No errors, RAM is solid
* Unplugged the CDROM but had the same Normal Boot/Safemode issues
* Unplugged the HD (It's a PATA133 320GB) and booted the windows CD. Same BSOD
* Booted the Windows XP disk I slipstreamed the drivers onto and it booted fine on this system I'm typing on

Things I haven't tried but thought of in typing this:
* Disable SATA controller and just boot PATA HD
* Put the compnenets back in to make sure they boot correctly. (last resort because of the work involved and I'm feeling lazy today...)

I'm thinking the Mobo might be bad, but I don't have a spare I can check it with. I know there are some really smart folks on here so I'm making a try for help. Maybe someone has seen an issue like this? Any help anyone will earn my undying gratitude!!!

Thanks!
R

Just some other info about the system in case it helps:
- Antec 430B HTPC Case w/ Stock 430W PSU
- ASUS SATA DVD-ROM
- No extra Vid Card in this setup for the time being
- Hauppage PVR-550
 
Skimmed through most of it, seems like an OS issue. From what I can tell you tried installing a new mobo / CPU with an old OS. You probably should've cleared out the device manager so Windows would reinstall new hardware upon starting, but it looks like it's giving you trouble.

Burn and try an Ubuntu LiveCD and see if it works. If it does (or if you just feel like skipping this step), boot off your WinXP CD and do a repair install (as opposed to a manual command line repair).

Edit: Just read that you booted w/o hdd and still got a BSOD? BSOD while loading the WinXP CD?
 
Thanks for the reply. Yeah, the BSOD off of the Windows CD is bizarre, which is why I'm leaning toward the Mobo issue (maybe even the CPU?). I like the Live CD idea, that would be a good test. Though if it boots up, I think I might really be confused at that point... 🙂 I'll give the LiveCD a try and post back when complete.

Thanks!
 
Here's the update: Ubuntu managed to boot but it took about 5 minutes, and when Gnome finally came up it was all kinds of funky colors and the mice and keyboard wouldn't respond. Looks like it might be an issue with the IGP?
 
Just reading along here on a Sunday morning and ran across your post..I'm thinkin..maybe I can help some poor sole on this day..well here goes;

While observing your list of equipment..I noted an Antec 430 PSU..now..I don't mean to beat an old horse to death here..but..a year or so ago I was faced with a similar situation as yourself..weird intermittant indications of a problem. To make a long story of woe short..pull the PSU and check it for leaking caps..you may be glad you did..I was.

Have a nice day,

ronach
 
It's always best to do a clean reload when installing a new motherboard. Takes a lot less time too. Oh, and you discription of the boot process after putting in the XP disk sounds like it's not booting from the cd.
 
Your new motherboard needs a different driver for the HDD. You are probally getting the 0x0000007B error. When changing the motherboard it's always best to reload Windows.
 
Sorry to scrape this up again, but i just got the replacement motherboard and I'm still having the same issues. Ronach, thanks for the PSU post, but when I pulled it out it had a warranty sticker over it, and I'm not quite ready to void the warranty yet. 🙂 I definitely agree with Baloo and Narse about the XP reload with a new MB, that's usually one of the first things I do once I verify that the motherboard is good on the old install. Windows just doesn't run good when it's not clean.

I popped in the Ubuntu live CD after a few failed tries to load XP again and ever so briefly in the boot process I saw a quick screen that said something about being unable to access boot record for device <insert string of numbers here> (or something like that). Could this possibly be caused b a bum hard drive? Ubuntu continued to boot after the error and loaded up correctly. I'm thinking about getting a full Ubuntu install CD and using it to wipe the partitions on the drive. Any other recomendations would certainly be welcome.

Thanks!
 
Boot from a Vista or XP CD
Tell us which you're using
Tell us the exact BSOD error code - Stop 7B or whatever - with all the zeros and the full writeup of the error (INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE_0x000007B, for example)
 
Just a thought.. maybe your mistake was in tweaking the bios. How about selecting defaults or best settings saving it and trying again?
 
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