Custom Built PC - Cannot install an operating System

[Conway6288]

Built a PC with components from eBay (For a bet) and I cannot get an operating system to install. I have tried various OS' including the following: Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP, OpenSuse, Ubuntu, XUbuntu, Chrome OS and Jolicloud.

With the linux distros I get kernel panic or an initramfs error. Windows 7 & Vista the installer cannot find my hard drives. I have tried in RAID and not in RAID, 4 different hard drives have been tried but none have been discovered. Maybe I could try changing the Sata ports? That shouldn't be the problem as the bios can discover them just fine. With the windows installers I have tried putting the driver disc that was supplied with the mobo into the disc drive and nothing comes up. I even put the files onto a usb and still couldn't find them.

Starting to lose hope with this PC now but I really would like to get it working. The specs are:

Sapphire PI-A9RX480
AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+
2x1GB DDR
Nvidia Geforce 8600GT
2x40GB HDD's (Hopefully in RAID0 as boot device)
600w PSU

Any help will be accepted with open arms! Your my last hope guys. Please don't fail me!

 

[a-nano-moose]

Have you tried running a live version of linux? You could also put memtest on a floppy or thumb drive and try that to check your memory.

 

[r0aringdrag0n]

It's probably the RAM or the mobo

 

[lunyone]

Is it possible that your CD/DVD drive is faulty??
Test other SATA ports too, you may have a bad one.

 

[Conway6288]

I have tried all of the suggested things here. I get the same results when booting from a live CD. I have tried both sticks of ram seperately and together. The CD drive has came from my working computer so I don't think thats faulty, various different SATA cables have been used. I am thinking of trying just an IDE drive?

 

[r0aringdrag0n]

well, if you bought it from e-bay...don't buy it

 

[gokanis]

It's a fairly old motherboard and may not recognize the sata drive when installing even though it has sata ports. I have one (AMD Athlon XP 3200 and I think a gigabyte board) that supported SATA but will not install unless I load a seperate sata driver during the beginning of the install (F6 to load additional drivers). I had win xp, service pack one.

 

[ps3hacker12]

hey, are the drives OEM drives, as in pulled from an OEM system (such as HP or Acer), if so they may be OEM locked, you can easily unlock them though.

 

[Conway6288]

I have made some progress guys thanks to some of your suggestions. I have added an IDE drive into the system as the master. I didn't know whether it was working or not but it is. It is only 10gb so Windows 7 can't be installed. Although this time at least it picked up a drive. So I turned to the tried and true Windows XP. Currently copying the files after formatting the drive. Fingers crossed that it will work !

 

[ps3hacker12]

I have made some progress guys thanks to some of your suggestions. I have added an IDE drive into the system as the master. I didn't know whether it was working or not but it is. It is only 10gb so Windows 7 can't be installed. Although this time at least it picked up a drive. So I turned to the tried and true Windows XP. Currently copying the files after formatting the drive. Fingers crossed that it will work !

for unlocking an OEM drive normal formatting won't work, this will:
http://software.lsoft.net/boot-cd-iso.zip

 

[Conway6288]

for unlocking an OEM drive normal formatting won't work, this will:

The IDE drive that I am using is not OEM, not too sure about the sata ones though

 

[ps3hacker12]

for unlocking an OEM drive normal formatting won't work, this will:

The IDE drive that I am using is not OEM, not too sure about the sata ones though

yep, was talking about the sata one. ive bought quite a few HDDs off eBay and half of them were OEM locked.

 

[lunyone]

ps3hacker12 you need to have some text added to your signature in order for it to display right. You need text here [/ur] so it'll display it correctly.

Back to the thread: I had similar issues with an older mobo that had some issues seeing a SATA based HD, even though the mobo supported the first version of SATA (SATA I). I had a regular (not OEM) based HD and I had to install the jMicron IDE to SATA driver (IIRC) for the OS (Windows XP sp1) in order for it to recognize the HD. I think, once I went to Windows XP SP2 it went away, but I'm not 100% sure, since I haven't re-installed the OS on that system in over 18 months (which I usually format every 6 months or so to keep things running smooth and fast as possible).

 

[gokanis]

ps3hacker12 you need to have some text added to your signature in order for it to display right. You need text here [/ur] so it'll display it correctly.

Back to the thread: I had similar issues with an older mobo that had some issues seeing a SATA based HD, even though the mobo supported the first version of SATA (SATA I). I had a regular (not OEM) based HD and I had to install the jMicron IDE to SATA driver (IIRC) for the OS (Windows XP sp1) in order for it to recognize the HD. I think, once I went to Windows XP SP2 it went away, but I'm not 100% sure, since I haven't re-installed the OS on that system in over 18 months (which I usually format every 6 months or so to keep things running smooth and fast as possible).

I may try an experiment with SP1 and SP2 and see which one picks up my old system. I know SP1 didn't see the SATA drive (and it was early SATA I) so I had to add the SATA drivers seperately when the F6 prompt came up. All the drives I purchased were OEM drives from WD, Segate and Samsung.

I reformat every 6 months using Norton Ghost images, just pop the disk in and install patches and re-backup. I keep every backup version in case of problems.

 

[ps3hacker12]

ps3hacker12 you need to have some text added to your signature in order for it to display right. You need text here [/ur] so it'll display it correctly.

Back to the thread: I had similar issues with an older mobo that had some issues seeing a SATA based HD, even though the mobo supported the first version of SATA (SATA I). I had a regular (not OEM) based HD and I had to install the jMicron IDE to SATA driver (IIRC) for the OS (Windows XP sp1) in order for it to recognize the HD. I think, once I went to Windows XP SP2 it went away, but I'm not 100% sure, since I haven't re-installed the OS on that system in over 18 months (which I usually format every 6 months or so to keep things running smooth and fast as possible).

lol, just saw that, thanks for telling me.

 

[lunyone]

lol, just saw that, thanks for telling me.

I'm always trying to help where I can