BSoD on windows boot-up, haylp!

[jabberwhacky]

I just upgraded my computer and besides having a minor snafu with the graphics card (read: it was DoA) everything seems to be working fine. That is, until windows loads. When I shut down my computer to remove the hard drives (I took them out of my old computer and put them with the new one) everything was working fine. Ever since I've been using them in the new one I get a fatal error right where the Windows XP screen should be popping up. Only once out of all the times I've let it go to Windows have I seen the Windows XP logo, and it was only for about a quarter second before the BSoD popped up. Both 80 gigs are seen in the BIOS, and I've adjusted alot of variables with them; I've used different cables, I've put them in different orders, I moved the jumpers to make sure they were in master/slave section.

Later this morning I'm going to take it to my friend's house to see if I can slave it to his computer and save my data, but until then, is there anything I can do to try and fix the drive? I was thinking of trying to load windows from the CD, except that I don't have a windows XP CD.

The error I get says this: Windows had to shut down in order to prevent damage to your computer. If this is your first time getting the message, restart your computer. If you are getting this message repeatedly, you should remove any new hard drives or hard drive controllers and check for viruses etc etc.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[Teq]

When you change the motherboard/chipset windows is going to crash. If won't be able to find a compatible IDE or chipset driver and it's going to fail to load.

The only good answer to this is to format the drive and reload your operating system, since motherboard specifics are only detected during intstall.


--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

 

[khha4113]

I suspect it has something to do with Activation code. I also used to have that error when I changed my mobo (Abit KG7-RAID to KX7-333R). WinXP cannot load although Win2000 was OK. I had to reinstall WinXP eventually (with re-activation, of course).

Good or Bad have no meaning at all, depends on what your point of view is.

 

[jabberwhacky]

Thanks for the answers. Would it be feasable to copy 65-70 gigs worth of data to my friend's empty HD, reformat mine with a fresh Windows XP in it, and then copy back all the info? Besides taking a long-ass time, would there be any problem with that?

 

[Teq]

Nope... it's a bit convoluted... but it can be done.

You can simply install your drive as a slave on your friend's machine and either copy or zip the files onto his machine.

Back on your machine, you would put your drive in as a master, do all your setup and install... and this time be clever... make a smallish partition for your OS and software (say about 6 or 8 gigs) and a second partition for your data. The advantage is that if you have to format and reload you won't be going through this again because you will only have to do the partition with your OS on it... the data won't be touched.

Once you have that done, put his drive in your machine as a slave and copy or unzip the files into your second partition.

It doesn't matter which filesystems are on the platters XP knows how to read one and write to the other...

Also, in future... I <b>strongly</b> recommend that you get into the habit of doing regular backups... not the software, just the irreplaceable data. Cd's will work or use zip disks... whatever. Just in case the next time this happens the data ends up being outright lost.

Hope this helps...





--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

 

[jabberwhacky]

Ya it does help What's the best way to make a partition? Is there a partition maker built in XP?

 

[Teq]

Boot to the XP CD, you will be given the chance to create and format the first partition (where XP installs) during the installation.

You can do the rest by going into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management and creating / formatting one or more additonal partitions there.

BTW... you really should do this with NTFS. It's faster and a lot nicer to work with... plus, unlike FAT32 there are some really nice tweaks that can help you improve it even further. You can turn off the "last access" date, turn off the diskperformance counters, tweak the minimum allocation size for new files and several other things that really get NTFS sailing along.

One of the better XP/2k tweaking guides is here...
<A HREF="http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/default.html" target="_new">http://snakefoot.fateback.com/tweak/winnt/default.html</A>



--->It ain't better if it don't work<---

 

[jabberwhacky]

Very good info, thanks again.

Now that it's come to it, I'm gonna have to get a Windows XP CD, and I wanted to know if I should buy a "real" version or just stick with the boot leg version? I've been using a non-legal XP since a little bit prior to its release (one of my friend's got some early version that seemed to work fine). Besides one weird 30 day trial version I've never had a problem with any of the XP's I've used. My dad agreed to go halfsies with me on XP (on a side note, would XP run on a 333mhz with 512 ram and 30 gig HD?) and that's pretty much the only reason why I'm considering buying the full version. Oh and would I notice anything going from professional to home version? I just use the comp for gaming and internet, I never dug very deep in it.

 

[Teq]

I sell computers so I don't want to comment about the advantages of pirated vs factory CDs... but I can answer the other question.

XP will probably run on the slower machine... but it will be clunky and slowish. XP really does need more horespower than a 333 processor to do a good job. Also if you buy XP Home you may run into activation problems, so I'm going to suggest you "split" a copy of windows 2000. It will run nicely on that other computer and, as a bonus, no online activation or other sillyness.

XP is basically win2k with eye candy... so it's not like you would be getting a lesser operating system. In fact, when properly setup and tweaked, win2k is faster and more reliable than XP.



--->It ain't better if it don't work<---