Windows XP install crash "A problem has been detected..."

[Spike]

Bear with me here as I am trying to do tech support accross the state so I am not as fully aware of what is going on as the computer is not in front of me. Here's the story...

My brother just built a new C2D setup using Asrock eSATA2 xfire, E6300, 1GB DDR667, old 80GB IDE HDD, SATA disk drive, 8800GTS 320mb, cooler master 500watt. He initially installed windows xp, got it fully running and patched, and was playing games for several weeks. Windows had some sort of issue where it stopped recognizing the SATA DVD drive and instead showed a floppy. There was some fix he found on the web involving registry keys but he sorta screwed it up and destroyed windows in the process. In hindsite I don't think he installed the mobo SATA drivers so that might have been an issue.

Now he can't reinstall windows. Everytime he boots from the cd it goes through all its moving of files to get ready to install but after all that is done it goes to a blue screen with the message "a problem has been detected, windows will now shut down to prevent damage to your hardware" or something along those lines. So here is what we (or actually he) has tried to far:

1. They swapped ram out, no difference.
2. Swapped HDD's with another old IDE drive, no difference. He actually used the windows ME that was installed on that other old drive to boot the machine without any problem... well, no problem besides windows freaking out because it detected a crap load of different hardware.
3. Tried installing windows 2000, basically the same error.
4. Used a different program to wipe the drive, then tried to install, no difference.
5. Disabled HDD SMART, no difference.

At this point I am lost as I have never actually used a SATA drive nor built a C2D setup nor used this particular MB brand. Does anyone have any ideas what might be causeing the issue? I assume it has something to do with the hardware other than the HDD that is causing the problem.

Thanks to anyone that can give us a hand with this!

 

[kingtas]

I know you said you swapped the RAM. But swap it out again. The only time I have had this problem loading XP is when the RAM was bad.

 

[Spike]

We can try playing with the ram again to see if thats the problem. For reference, here is the ram we are using:

PQI 1GB

It's cheap and probably can't OC worth a darn but it seemed to work just fine before. thanks

 

[Spike]

So we ran memtest86 for 2.5 hours and it had 0 errors after over 4 passes. I checked the ram timings and they were correctly entered into the bios as well. The error still occures where the machine go's to the blue screen after completly loading all the files needed to do a windows XP install. Any ideas?

EDIT* funny enough I was able to go through the VISTA installation process using a RC1 disk I have. It seemed to go slow with some huge pauses during the install but it worked... any ideas why that would work but 2000 and XP dont?

 

[sieistganzfett]

it can literally be anything. and from what i read, you can't install any modern OS. from start to finish and have it finish as usable is definitely a problem. regardless of where 2k, xp, vista rc1 will crash, and they are different OS, so different parts of the install can be more intense than other points, hence why the pc crashes at different times for the different OSes. the only things that havent been swapped out is
CPU =never the problem,
MOBO =very likely to be the problem
ram =you ruled it out already (was very likely to be the problem)
video card = Minimum recommended power supply with +12 Volt current rating of 26 Amps.
the coolmaster has 3x 12V -> 396W->33A combined.. probably enough for the hardware in the system..

that cd drive that became a floppy issue is really wierd and probably motherboard related.

when windows is being installed. and throughout the entire troubleshooting process. is everything not needed disconnected from the computer, disconnect all external devices, take out or disconnect any other add in cards or drives, leaving to just the mobo, cpu with it's heatsink fan combo, video card, 1 hard drive, (doesnt matter if SATA or IDE) i think this was the case, just the basics connected when installing windows and it crashes, but i am just wondering..

troubleshoot the blue screens that occur is probably the best next step to take. there is probably going to be dumpfiles under the c:\windows\minidump directory for winxp when it crashed. I'm pretty sure that both vista and 2k put the dump files in the same location. use windows debugger and !analyze -v to see whats causing it. you'll need to disconnect the drive and put it in a working pc as a secondary drive to get access to those .dmp files and open them up to see whats going on. i'm pretty sure the motherboard causing the problems. something on it could be faulty, and when stressed the pc crashes. the cd->floppy could have been one of the things before it got this bad.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/default.mspx

install Windows Debugger, and using it to check the dump file to find out windows crashed. after installing run !analyze -v and lmv commands to find out what did it.
**** after dbg_x86_6.6.07.5.exe installed, open windbg, set FILE|symbol file path to click "reload" box, then ok.
SRV*c:\local cache*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols

**** then file|open crash dump and run the commands

!analyze -v will tell you the error, click the link on the drive
under Debugging Details:
DEFAULT_BUCKET_ID -tells the general category of the failure
IMAGE_NAME -tells what driver is at fault, like if DRIVER_FAULT
click on the driver highlighted under MODULE_NAME it tells info like path to that module

lmv -tells loaded modules in detail, then click edit|find for that driver listed under IMAGE_NAME


****IF
*if driver at fault is ntoskrl.exe (windows core) or win32.sys (driver most responsible for the GUI layer on windows),it is PROBABLY NOT WINDOWS needing to be reinstalled, it is PROBABLY some third-party device driver that called it.

 

[Spike]

Thanks for all that, I will try and read the drive from my other machines to access the files.

Just a few notes though, the computer is all-ready running in bare mod, CPU, mobo, 1 stick ram, Vid card, 1 hdd, 1 SATA cd drive, thats it. And Windows XP worked BEFORE flawlessly until my brother did something to the registry. Plus I have vista installed now and running fine, the problem is I don't have an extra key so this is just temporary to test it and it seems to be working. There were some large pauses during install but overall the Vista Ultimate installation took ~50 min.

Also the cm 500 watt only has two 12v rails, 32a combined. I can use a SP 500watt to test that I have sitting around but it's not much more powerful at 36a total.

I too think it's the motherboard now that memtest showed the ram to be working fine. I am thinking about updating the BIOS to the latest to see if that helps with any incompatibility. Speaking of that, I don't even know if the BIOS is the latest vista bios or not so that could account for the long pauses.

Thanks!

EDIT*** Well, I updated the BIOS and still got the error... then I tried one last thing. I ripped out a PATA dvd burner from my other computer and used that instead of the SATA drive and whammo, it worked!!! So I believe this means the culprit is still the mobo but specifically some sata issue that the vista installer was able to overcome but the 2k and XP could not. I am going to finish the xp install and test for stability before I pop and champagne but so far this is good...

EDIT*** x 2. Well, it gets through the initial phase of win xp installation, then after the first reboot I get the error "error loading operating system" I tried this several times, all had the same effect.

EDIT****x3 I use seagates tool to write 0's to the entire drive and then tried installing windows xp again using the ide cd drive and it worked. I am in the process of updating, patching, and tweaking the install now. Hopefully this will be a stable install with no more issues down the road though I believe there is still some issue with the mobo. Time will tell...