New PC that crashes after windows XP login, totally weird

[rehenry]

This problem is very frustrating. I just bought all the bits for a new computer and the only thing I transplanted was my old SATA HD to be used as a spare (I bought a new one to boot from) and an old DVD drive.
My system is:
Asus Crosshair MB
1gb Patriot Ram (800mhz)
Palit 512MB 7950GT PciE Card
Maxtor 320GB SATA II HD
650W Antec Trio PSU
Pioneer DVD RW (whatever the latest one available is)
Pioneer DVD rom (read only, it is a few years old, before the time of RW)
Floppy
All in an Antec P180 case

I built this last weekend and installed windows on the new HD. Everything was going great for a few days and then the system started crashing after login. The weird bit about this is that I can boot onto the old Hard drive no problems. After a lot of trouble shooting I scanned the HD with Maxtor pwrmax software and found the HD was stuffed. I have swapped this out and reinstalled everything.
After a few days the problem of windows XP crashing after login has come back again. I have scanned the HD and it passed all tests.
I am completely stumped on this one, i figure it probably isn't a hardware issue as the system is stable when booting from the old hard drive (and hence old windows install).
I have installed basically nothing, just the updates, drivers, office XP, and a game that came with the Graphics card.
The exact time is crashing is after you click to login, and the icons on the task bar begin to be loaded. This is weird

can anybody suggest a fix or a way to debug? I don't want to give in and take this thing to a shop to get fixed....

 

[mad-dog]

I believe you may have your HDD's mixed up and not realizing which one your booting from and which one contains the old OS, the system might boot with the old OS but not correctly and would give you a world of troubles....kinda like the troubles your having now...lol

 

[rehenry]

Thanks mad-dog for you "input". I wish I had made this mistake of mixing up my HDs and hence OS as then it would be a nice easy problem to fix. Due to the lack of icons on my desktop and half the number of accounts as previously. there is no doubt i am loading the new OS.
The problem has become weirder over night, I tried to do a system restore to just after I had installed the OS. When I rebooted the system restore failed (bloody microsoft). When this happens you get a warning screen after logging in. The system continued to boot up and was stable.
Upon the next reboot it failed again.

Any more feedback? surely somebody has seen this sort of thing before?