Neighbours Building Computer...? Help !

[Grant1872x]

Freshly built, some problems...?

Hi, my neighbor next door is building a new system... I'm hazarding some guesses below so sorry if it's inaccurate...

AMD Turion x2
AMD asRock
4GB RAM
128MB Integrated nVidia
250GB HDD (SATA)
450w PSU

OK, What's happenin is he turns it on and it boots fine, no beeps... HDD seems a bit quiet...? fan spins fine disc drive revs and then when he inserts the Vista disc it says, 'Reboot and select proper boot device or insert bootable disc and press any key...' or something similair... he inserts the disc and the drive revs a few times, weakly... and the message pops up again... burned the Vista disc at 4x to make sure that it will work fine!

Things we have tried:
Removing the HDD and installing a laptop one, to get a blue screen upon boot logo of Vista..
Trying an IDE HDD, to only get the same errors...
Changing the primary boot values...

Seems really confusing and hard to tell...? Can't diagnose properly and my neighbour has worked with computers for years, I was wondering if we were maybe missing something here...? Something you can spot that we obviously didnt lol...?

Please reply peeps... Cheers Thanks for reading
(PS: I'm only 14 and I'm not too good so be kind lol )

 

[Grant1872x]

asRock being the mo'board :S Dunno model.. :S

 

[hairycat101]

asRock sux... being the likely problem...

No.. really this is likely a bios setting. You need to make sure the thing knows to boot from the vista disk. Once you have vista loaded, then switch to the HD. Boot it. Go to Bios. Find the boot order. Change the boot order.

 

[hairycat101]

Just re-read that and caugh that this is a bunred disk of Vista... Why a burned disk? If he bought the OS, it should come with a disk. If you burned it, you might not have copied it properly. Even at a slow burn rate, that doesn't insure that it copied the disk correctly.

 

[knotknut]

@ boot up enter system bios, set DVD drive as first boot device. Put OS disk into tray, close tray. Select save changes and exit bios. Install should happen.

 

[HPCE_Larry]

Yea there really isn't a good reason for you to have a burned vista disc. Buy it new, i saw it on sale at newegg for $80, home premium edition.

 

[Grant1872x]

Err... I have done that.. 'Changing the primary boot values...'

And yes It's a downloaded version... :| I didn't want to say, but I thought u would guess due to me burning the disc. 4x is safer than 16x, less errors...
I burned same copy and it was fine... works in my PC...?

I think u need to read it again.. twice not enough lol Seriously... I know all this, but thanks for contributing...

PS: My neighbour has been workin on computers for 11 years

 

[huron]

So you got it? Just changing the boot sequence is usually required.

Happy to hear you got it working

 

[Grant1872x]

He's on a budget... and when I have a spare premium disc it seems a waste! I live in the UK btw

Making it clear: I Have Set The Primary Boot to CD/DVD Drive...

I will try burning another anyways..

 

[Grant1872x]

No it's still not working.. I'm just saying I had already changed the boot values...

 

[hairycat101]

You won't know if the error is a computer error or disk error until you try to use a legal disk. There are lots of things that could go wrong burning a disk. Burn errors are probably the least of your concerns. I don't know who compiled the disk. I have no idea what all is on it besides Vista. I have no idea if they made a good image... meaning file types, missing files, properly ripped boot image. GO BUY A LEGAL DISK!!!

 

[Grant1872x]

Please read this: It works on my PC AND I have used it on my PC... So it does work... I said this before...? :S

I have a feeling that you are not reading the other replies. I do appreciate ur help, I'm just trying to clear a few things up here... u know? :S

 

[hairycat101]

Actually, I have been reading the replies and I happen to know a lot about burning disks. There are a few issues here. One is the legality of doing what you are doing. Another is the morality of stealing your OS. The last one... the one I am trying to warn you about is the technical. I know it worked once on yours. It is very likely that it worked on your computer... reading from the same drive in which it was burned. That is a different thing then having the quality control to read from ANY drive. Also, the build of Vista can effect things. The newer ones like AMD's more then the old ones. Lots of poeple have had issues with old Vista builds and AMD procs. GO BUY A LEGAL COPY, you freeloading thief. =)

 

[teknomedic]

If it's a SATA DVD-Rom, you might have to ensure that the SATA boot order is also correct and in-line with the general boot order.

I had a problem were I couldn't boot from my HDD even though the general boot order was correct (for me floppy, CD, then HDD)... but I found that in my SATA section my boot HDD was listed as third... so instead of booting my correct HDD it was trying to boot the first HDD listed in the SATA list... and the BIOS wasn't smart enough to try booting all SATA drives... just the first one.

 

[teknomedic]

also, have you considered geting updated frimware for the DVD drive... and an updated BIOS for the mobo?

....and since you burned the copy of Vista... are you sure you made it a bootable disk... or buned it correctly to ensure it's a bootable disk?

 

[shelbyz1679]

Make sure your jumper settings are right for the harddrive and the cd rom, try using master/slave and cable select to see what works. If not set right the bios will see the cd rom, but not be able to use it correctly. Also if u have to seperate sata controllers on your motherboard try switching the cd rom to a seperate controller. Mine has Uli and silicon image controllers on it. If I put both sata devices on 1 controller the cd rom constantly froze up. Good luck.

 

[knotknut]

Stick your HDD in his PC see if it will boot your OS.

No, I'm not talking dirty! LOL

Edit: Make sure you have a back-up first. If in doubt dont do it.

 

[roadrunner197069]

If the hard drive shows up on boot device priority and is set for ide mode it should work.

If it dont show up on boot device priority you need to go in and manage hard disks and set the right drive to be the 1st HDD. Its probably not set as 1st.

 

[Grant1872x]

knotknut lol, I will do...!

@ hairycat101, Alot of people do it, lol I may be a freeloader, but in the end that's me £100 better off...? you a Microsoft representative? lol just kidding Ty so far!

err... Error! When I boot XP or Vista from the other two HDD's (not at the same time lol ) I get a quick blue screen, can't read it...! Then it restarts very quickly and it will go in that cycle! It happens when the logo XP or Vista logo appears...?
So he changed the RAM with mine and still happens... I have tried all sorts of stuff, like trying to boot 3 diff. Vista discs and... nothing! I have tried to boot the Ultimite Boot CD... but nope!! !!!

I'm starting to think that it's the moboard!! He just bought it so, wouldn't be a problem to refund I guess... Just don't want to go down that road.. u know ?

 

[Grant1872x]

Another thing... It's a fresh install I want to do... It's a fresh build and a really nice rig to be honest...

 

[Grant1872x]

Anyone else...?

 

[dokk2]

get rid of that mobo and get a good one,there are plenty of low priced
[cheap] mobo's out there that work fine,f'r instance my asus m2n-e $95.cad,works like a charm over clocks rather well...

 

[Wolfshadw]

I recently decided to rebuild my bedroom HTPC with a burned Vista DVD (I have a paid technet subscription so I'm legal) and had a similar issue. The first time I used the burned DVD, it worked flawlessly. The second time (rebuild of the same system), it continually errored out. After some googling around I came across an article with similar problems as mine and the suggested fix was to re-burn the iso with a 1x write speed. After the lengthy re-burn, the system installed without issue.

As for ASRock motherboards, mine has been working perfectly for three years now.

-Wolf sends

 

[wareup]

is your CD/DVD ROM SATA interface? I red something having problem booting using SATA CD/DVD connection.

On top of that I assumed that you've proper boot sequence and detected your CD/DVD ROM

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