Upgrading motherboard issues

[Tan DJ]

All,

Not sure if this belongs in a Hardware forum or a Software forum.

I have just purchased a new Abit AN52 MOBO, and an AMD X2 5600+, and 2 new 500gb Sata drives, and a HD2600 XT, 4 x 1 GB 800mhz DDR2

I have installed all in my case, but I am unable to boot to Windows XP from my original 80GB IDE drive. It gets to the Windows XP Splash screen with the little blue scrolly thing, and it sits there for a few seconds with the scrolly thing scrolling, and then the system resets.

I have tried a Windows XP install on a "test" partition I created on one of the SATA drives, and it install's beautifully, and I can install all the drivers that came with the MOBO, video card etc - and it all works fine - hence I am able to post this message from a working Windows installation.

I suspect that the old installation is loading some driver which is conflicting with the new hardware.

How do I "fix" my original installation so that it will boot on the new hardware?

I'd prefer to get my old installation working so that I don't have to reinstall everything.


Regards,

Tan DJ

[sneekypeet]

you can try booting in safe mode and removing all drivers that are from the previous install. Also have some sort of registry cleaner installed as well, so the regisrty can be wiped B4 restart!

[Tan DJ]

I've tried booting in safe mode and it gets as far as loading agp440.sys and sits there doing nothing!

I'll try booting with logging turned on, and see if anything intersting shows up...

[sneekypeet]

hmmmm sound like something is corrupt....Download Ultimate Boot CD and see if the appropriate HDD tools can repair the HDD if not , I think it may be a lost cause. A format may be soon in your future!

If you need to save info , put HDD in another machine and save the appropriate files , then right it to zero's and reinstall windows!

[Tan DJ]

I know it's not the hard drive because I can put the old MOBO back in, and it boots up fine.

With this boot that I am working from, I can access the other installation, So I can save files that I need from here.

Hmm, I just did a Boot with logging. Where the heck does that boot log go?

[zekrahminator]

No silly, a simple repair job will do wonders. Here's how you repair XP:

1: Boot onto XP CD on new machine.

2: Select "install Windows". Press F8 to agree to license.

3: It will hopefully search for previous installations of Windows. If it finds one, it will ask if you'd like to repair it. That's when you say "yes".

4: Wait about an hour.

5: Boot onto your 80GB partition and do whatever you'd normally do.

[Tan DJ]

Done that too. Still doesn't work! Then when I booted from the original MOBO last night (after trying the repair option) it took an hour and a half to reload all 86 critical/security updates from Microsoft update.

(Just loaded the updates on the new test installation and it took 10 minutes!)

[sneekypeet]

I have had HDD's that will boot on one system but when swapped to a new mobo arent even recognized.

Wait around a bit to see what the fellas come up with , but Im pretty sure when you booted with everything still on the HDD not only is HAL messed up but so is the MBR until it sees the original Mobo again!

[Tan DJ]

So how do I update the HAL? Can I copy it from my new "test" install?

[Live OR Die]

yer just install xp on a second hard drive change the frist boot in the bios to that hard drive, and the copy your files over only thing that mite be a problem is if you had a password on your old system you will not be able to access your old user files.

[Live OR Die]

is the old 80GB hard drive IDE? when you installed windows did you take the 80GB out?

[Tan DJ]

I can access the original installation from my test install Ok.

So is your suggestion to build a new installation of windows XP on a new disk, copy across the My Documents (and any other user files I want to keep - actually, I'd create a backup set of my entire "old system" just in case...), and reinstall all my other programs? Or is there a way to do it in such a way that my installed programs remain?

[Tan DJ]

is the old 80GB hard drive IDE? when you installed windows did you take the 80GB out?

Yes the old 80Gb hard drive is IDE, and when I installed my "test" installation, I did not remove the old drive. It is still there as "C:" and my "test" installation is on "E:". - if the only option is to rebuild, I'll try to rebuild it so that the SATA raid array is "C:"

[Live OR Die]

so you have windows installed on one of your 500GB harddrives there is not way you can copy programs over from 1 os to a another os only if that program had be installed on that os frist,

[Tan DJ]

That's why I'd like to get my original 80GB IDE install working. Then I could just move the page file, move My Documents, and everything would be working just nicely.

But will performance be impacted (noticably) if I run with the System drive on the 80Gb IDE?

[AsRock]

What about booting of the XP CD and doing a repair ?...

[sneekypeet]

What about booting of the XP CD and doing a repair ?...

Read from post #6 on please:toast:

[Tan DJ]

I've decided to bite the bullet, and install a fresh verion of XP, and reinstall programs that I actually use. That way my registry wont be full of junk that I no longer need.

It took 3 hours to create a backup of the 80G drive, and because of my paranoia, I decided to copy the 60Gb backup file to the other Sata Drive (just in case when I set up the "mirror" - I clobber the wrong drive), and it only took 12 minutes to copy the 60Gb.

So, I'll go to the CMOS menu, and set up one of the drives as a "mirror" then boot this "test" install to ensure that I can see the RAID set, and to format it ready for installing XP for real. Also, I want to ensure that when I do the install the "RAID" set is "C:"

Once all the dust has settled from this upgrade, I'll reuse the 80G as a place to install VMWare images and Linux and Solaris...

[Live OR Die]

best thing to do when getting a new system is a clean install because old drivers and program will make windows unstable, and using the 80GB IDE will slow thing down with the slower RPM abit from using the sata 500GB

[DeathJr]

ok i am surprized none of you guys knew this ok reason why you couldnt get it to work is...When you take a HDD from some mobo's and install windows on it it saves a specific hardware key to the hdd when you go and use it in a new mobo via sata or ide internally the hardware keys dont match and therfor you cant boot. to solve the problem all you needed was an external usb housing to slap it in there and boot from usb/firwire device