Trying to boot XP Home OS quest.

[Strictlym3]

Hi,

I just got finished building my comp. and put in my old hdd drive. This is my first time ever building one and when I tried to boot to XP I keep getting the.. windows did not start normally would you to go into safe mode... screen. It'll try to boot then it would restart itself again and I get stuck in this vicious cycle.

My old hdd came from a sony vaio computer and the built system is an msi p6n sli board. Does anything have to do with the chipset driver?

Any ideas why I can't get XP to load?

Thanks in advance

 

[edklite]

quite complicated, but it works most of the time.

The non-ACPI routine.

After you've cloned (not just installed XP) the old drive onto the new hd, install it in the old rig as the primary boot device; unplug the old. Then:

Find out if the new mobo supports non-ACPI operation. Check its' specs; almost all do.

If so, print this out - and good luck!

OLD SYSTEM
Remove and uninstall all the current drivers (video, sound, chipset, ide) from Control Panel - Add/Remove.

Find Device Manager (Start - Run - (type in)devmgmt.msc - Enter). Expand the Computer value - double-click ACPI Uniprocessor PC - driver tab - Update driver.
Choose to "Install from a list or specific location (Advanced) - Don't Search.
UNCHECK THE BOX "Show compatible hardware". Select "Standard PC". Click Next & OK. You will get a Restart prompt. NO! "DO NOT RESTART".
While still in D/M (Device Manager), delete the rest of the hardware whose drivers you didn't find in C/P relating to the above list only.
Shut down and do not turn it on until you've completed ALL the hardware swapping in the old rig; or installed the drive in a new machine.

NEW SYSTEM
Turn on and bootup. XP will load & redetect the entire hardware config. Probably will reboot a couple of times.

After you get a quiet desktop, Start - Run - (type in)cmd.exe - Enter

Type this in: set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1

Type: devmgmt.msc

View tab - Show hidden devices. The old stuff will have transparent icons.
Select, right-click and Uninstall all of these EXCEPT the ones inside "Non-Plug and Play Drivers" and "Sound, video and game controllers". Reboot.

Back into D/M - expand the Computer value. Double-click the first Standard PC - driver tab - Update driver. Choose "Install from a list...." - "Don't search....". Uncheck "Show compatible hardware - Select "Advanced....(ACPI) PC". Next - OK - Restart.

XP will now detect again. When done, reboot. Back into D/M - expand Computer - right-click Standard PC - uninstall. Reboot.

Back into D/M and get rid of the transparent icons again, as per three paragraphs above. Reboot.

Check the new mobo cd documentation. You may want to install all the NEW drivers again if that is part of their instruction for XP operating system.

I know it's a lot of steps, but I feel it's much quicker than a clean install with all its' updating & setting stuff up.