[HBHRacing]

Something is wrong with the comp that I built for my mother. She has a complete nack for these things. I have a theory, but am looking for alternate causes.


She said it won't boot. That wasn't the case. It booted fine but never loaded windows. It would stick at the XP loading screen with that little moving bar graph forever. Status light on the case would steady blink every second in repetition. Tried safe mode and no help. It would show all the files it was loading and just stuck there and never moved.

Checked everything over and it looked ok. Stuck in the XP disk to do a repair, and noticed that the partition that XP was on looked wrong. Where it usually shows the partition and what OS is loaded on it, it showed the amount of free space and total HD space. It was the same. That wasn't right. Used recovery console to command CHKDSK on the C drive. Found errors and fixed it, and looked good.

Same deal loading windows. Now however it would get as far as the user log on screen before it stopped loading, and in safe mode you would get the safe mode warning box before it stopped. Tried to do teh repair again and this time teh partition looked normal. Went through the 1st step of copying files, and it wouldn't copy 2 files. Stopped and restarted and it did the same thing on the 2 same files. Tried one more time and it went through. Got to the last stage of windows install (the one that says it will take 39 mins to complete install ... blah blah... ) and tried to get it to finish. It would get to 34 mins left and was "installing devices" and it would shut the comp down and try to restart the windows install. I let it do this 4 times before I gave up.


eh?

[fbodys_own]

well my first step would be to delete the partition, format and then reinstall windows. if you still have the problem then you obviously have a hardware problem. id look into the ram for that, maybe you dont have the ram installed properly.

try those then we can go from there.

[HBHRacing]

Cant. I need to save the info from it. The HD is fine.

[fbodys_own]

you didnt back it up? i kind of followed you through this build and i think i remember you saying you were going to have a seperate hd for backup only. besides, its not a very wise business move in that particular business not to back up your work. i never said the hd was faulty, im suggesting that the installation is. a lot of times youll run into problems trying to correct the installation using the recovery console and even trying to reinstall on top of the bad partition when you can just delete the partition, create a new one, format and then install windows again.

also, just to be safe... did you install sp2?

[HBHRacing]

SP2 was on the origonal install.

I have it set up for her, it's up to her to use the backup. That was the whole reason I used 2 120Gig HD's. Plenty o room for daily backups of all the programs files.


Nothing is on the second drive yet. If worse comes to worse I can load XP on the other drive and then just try and take as much info from the other HD as I can, but I need to avoid that unless I have to.

I'm fairly sure that something is wrong with the disk. When I installed XP the first time around on the fresh system, it wouldn't copy a file. I thought it just glitched a little or the new CR Rom had a hiccup and restarted it and it went fine. I think however that one of the files it would not copy now is the same one it didnt like before. It's possible that the CD is corrupt. It's highly doubtful the ROM is bad and not reading it correctly.

[Sean]

did you just move this hd from another computer into this new one or is this a fresh os install? Sounds fishy

[HBHRacing]

everything was brand new. She even bought a legit XP home at staples.

[fbodys_own]

then take your own suggestion and get a different copy of windows and try to fix the problem.

[HBHRacing]

That was my theory, but like I said I would like alternate theories. Anything that I can do to prevent the need of transferring the files will be needed. Either way once this is resolved, I guess I need to physically show her how to back up all of her programs, files and data so that at any given point I can format, reinstall and make it just like nothing ever happened.

[Thumper]

i would piggyback the drive on another comp to snatch the files off of it, delete the partition reformat the drive and then reinstall using a different windows disk, all you need is to use the key anyway. it might not be what you want to do, but that is the first thing I would do.


It does kind of sound like the HD could be bad. I know it is brand new and it shouldnt happen, but shit does.


also, tell your mom to back up her crap.

This post has been edited by Thumper: 11 July 2007 - 12:19 PM

[Sean]

you cant just use the key with any windows disc.

[HBHRacing]

I told her to call MS and try and get them to send her a new copy. I dunno, I've never had to deal with them. though I'm about 90% sure something is wrong with the disk, or at least a file or 2.

I'll see what happens after that, though I think if it would complete the repair install, it would work ok.

[Sean]

google that problem. hell who knows it could be something wrong with the ram in the comp or something else not compatible with something.

[Thumper]

I have been able to use a windows key with different disks.....maybe I am just special. I used to do it all the time, especially when i used to bend the rules a bit.


At college with huge discount, legal now =D

oh well.

This post has been edited by Thumper: 12 July 2007 - 08:40 AM

[Sean]

I have never been able to use the same key with different discs..