1st Boot Success, then Froze!

[evanxcs]

Just built 1st computer. Seemed to work on first boot, then froze.

I think I screwed up. I had my old HDD hooked up on the first boot, and it's loaded with windows xp and was in a working computer before I threw it in with this completely new system. I planned to format it in start up but forgot to plug in my keyboard and missed the boot screen as everything fired up.

It went on to load windows. I actually got to a low res version of my old desktop and background, icons and everything. Then it tried to auto-restart, and froze in the black windows loading screen (with the scrolling bar at the bottom).

I had to hold down the power button to get it to shut off.

After I started it up again, all the fans and lights came on, but nothing came on the screen. Dr. Debug was stuck on d1, but I have no idea what that means:

"Perform keyboard controller BAT test. Check if waking up from power
management suspend state. Save power-on CPUID value in scratch
CMOS"

Before posting this, I popped out the mobo battery and waited 10 minutes before putting it back in (as per the pre-troubleshooting post recommendations). Now when I start it up everything continues to turn on and spin, but Dr. Debug is stuck at d7 and still nothing shows on the screen at all:

"Restore CPUID value back into register. The Bootblock-Runtime interface
module is moved to system memory and control is given to it. Determine
whether to execute serial flash"


Did I ruin my mobo or graphics card by starting everything up and allowing an old HDD with windows already on it from another computer to boot up????

I've tried turning it on without the HDD hooked up and there's no difference.

I'm worried about trying all these things and constantly having to hold the power button down to turn it off after nothing works. But I suppose I can't break anything much more than I already did!

Can anyone help me out!!?!?!

 

[evanxcs]

So weird. I just retried it with the HDD plugged in, and the Window 7 DVD in the DVD drive. It started loading up the Windows 7 install process. I went through the menus and picked format disk and install Windows 7. It began "expanding windows files" and when it completed, tried to reboot. Got an error:

bootmgr image is corrupt. the system cannot boot

When I restarted it began to try and finish the Window 7 installation, and then tried to reboot. I got up to the screen where I enter the product key, and then a BSOD popped up. Couldn't read the text before it tried to reboot and I got another of the bootmgr errors.

Now when I try to restart it I have the same problem as the previous post where the Dr. Debug code is stuck at d7, and nothing shows up on the screen.

I'm tempted to try and take out the mobo battery again, and see if I can get it to boot up again.

 

[Paperdoc]

You do not plan to re-use anything on the old HDD, I understand. So, set up again to boot from your Win 7 DVD in the optical drive. When you power on, go into BIOS Setup directly (often by holding down the "Del" key) and do four things:
1. Reset the BIOS, but with a surer process. Unplug the machine, open the case and remove the mobo battery as you have done before. BUT while it is out, find a little jumper near it on a set of 3 pins, labelled something like "Reset". Move the jumper from the pair of pins on one end to the other end (so jumper is on middle and formerly-empty pin), leave it there for 10 seconds, them put it back where it started. This completely kills all power to the BIOS chip and forces it to re-start when power is restored. NOW replace the battery, close up, and reconnect power cord.
2. Look on the last tab for a place to Load Default Settings or Load Optimized Settings. You have reset the BIOS, but now you need to be sure that a complete and stable set of parameters is restored this way. Now, choose Save and Exit to start another boot sequence with these settings installed. But AGAIN, use "Del" or whatever to get back into BIOS setup.
3. Go to where the SATA hard drive is configured (I assume it is SATA). Make sure it is Enabled. Look close by for a SATA Port Mode setting, with choices like "IDE (or PATA) Emulation", "Native SATA", "AHCI", and "RAID". Set this to AHCI (the proper device type for a SATA drive). Win 7 (but not older Win XP) can handle this device type just fine.
4. Go to the place in BIOS to set the Boot Priority Sequence. Set it to use your optical drive first, and then your HDD. Make sure your Win 7 Install DVD is in the optical drive. Save and Exit, and it should boot cleanly from the Install disk.

Now when the Install process starts, don't just hit "Enter" to approve all settings. Watch for an opportunity to intervene and Delete any and all existing Partitions from that HDD so that it is absolutely empty. THEN proceed with the Install process.

Hopefully this will wipe out any old inappropriate and corrupted data on the drive and let you do a clean Install of Win 7.

 

[smorizio]

check the part number of your ram to the mb vendor list of tested ram. unless a hard drive has mec issues or controller issues as that on it are ones and zeros that are read into ram. with new mb and cpu and ram when there are bsod at a clean install is a hardware issue that damaging the files as there written to the hard drive. with windows the os writes a few lines into the mbr of the hard drive. when you go from xp to win7 you should do a fdisk/mbr. with your new mb check to see that you have the newest bios if not read to see what the vendor did (bios patch).. some are needed some are not..ones for new cpu code or a hang fix..one that you would not need is ones that change the vendor boot screen. one thing too with ram to check is see what the mb set the ram speed and timming and voltage. some time mb do read or set high speed ram up right or the voltage is too low. some tricks to see if it a ram issue is only use one dimm and see if you can install windows cleanly.

 

[evanxcs]

Thanks for the suggestions.

So it turns out that my BIOS is all in Japanese or something (except for "international" terms like SATA, etc.

I have no idea what anything is saying, and I have no idea how (or if) I can change the language to English.

I've attempted to run several HDD diagnostics. Disk Check froze at like 92% completion (probably not a good sign). I tried the SEAGATE diagnostic, but left the room. When I came back the computer had tried to reboot at some point and froze at the d7 point again.

Starting to suspect it's the HDD.

Will check the RAM too though. Thanks.

I've also seen some other errors come up:

irql_not_less_or_equal

and

page_fault_in_nonpaged_area

These errors are new, and they are coming up while I'm using the computer (after a successful boot). I can successfully boot like 50% of the time. Could this also be further indication that it's a bad HDD sector(s)??

 

[evanxcs]

I have the ASRock 770iCafe AM3+ AMD 770 ATX AMD Motherboard and bought 1 4gb stick of G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Desktop Memory Model F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL.

I just ran memtest86 4.0 and memtest86+

Memtest86 freezes up in test 5 and memtest86+ freezes during test 3. I believe both tests were "moving inversions, 8 bit pattern," and both produced thousands of errors.

Does this mean the RAM might be bad or could it be something else?

 

[smorizio]

i would clear the cmos..it set the bios back to english. i would then check the bios rev of the mb and see if it the same as the last one online. if it lower i would update it. if memtest still hangs i would check the ram part number to see if it on the mb or ram qal list for that mb. with some mb dont read the ram jtag right. cpu-z and then go under the spd tab and look at the ram speed and voltage that cpu-z read. then go into your cmos under ram speed/timming and see if it the same..ie 1300 9-9-9-9-24t.

 

[evanxcs]

Hey guys, thanks for all the suggestions!

Turns out it was a bad hard drive! I tested out a new one and everything seems to work fine now! Also, after resetting the cmos and booting up with the new hard drive, the BIOS came up in English (thank goodness!).

Apparently RAM tests can fail even if it's your HDD that's broken!