Windows partition will not boot, even in safe mode.

[Stu L Tissimus]

My Windows partition has been acting up for some reason. Basically, when I try starting it up, it'll reboot halfway through the screen with the Windows logo and the loading bar. Booting up in safe mode gives me a BSOD with no useful information. It says that it's dumping the memory, but... well, I find no new files in my minidump directory after it reboots (Yes, I'm looking at the right partition). Earlier dumps say that crashes tend to be due to nvatabus.

I thought it was a memory problem at first, but I made a second Windows partition which works fine.

I tried upgrading/reinstalling Windows, and it works fine... up to a point. It'll install fine and get to the GUI install, but it gets stuck when it says there are 33 minutes left. This is during the device install portion. I left it on for 7 hours straight, and it didn't budge. The system still responded; I could move the mosue around, and the little animated green squares at the bottom of the installer worked fine. It just wasn't doing anything. So yeah.

Any ideas on how to fix this? If not, what things do I need to make my old programs and things work on a new partition? Just the registry and all the old files outside \WINDOWS?



Specs:
Opteron 165
DFi LanPartyUT NF4 SLi-DR Expert
1GB Centon PC3200 crappyram
eVGA GeForce 7900GT
Antec TrioPower 630w
Windows XP Pro

 

[marulee]

Sound like a bad sector on your HD.
Try to divide the partition into two, then re-attempt the installation.
Good luck!

 

[wanderer27]

Added anything new hardware wise?

If it's not a bad sector, I'd suspect a device is causing problems - specifically a soundcard from my experience.

You could try a full format/reinstall to see if that works.

Alternatively you could remove some PCI cards and try a full format/reinstall and try to isolate devices as you reinstall them.

 

[Stu L Tissimus]

I'll try the partitioning thing, thanks.

And no, no new hardware.