Major Problems Booting/Installing Windows.

M

MitchellLutzke

New Member
I have had a huge problem with a current computer setup that I use downstairs. The same motherboard, processor, memory, modem, keyboard, mouse, and drives have all previously worked in this computer configuration before without problems, but temporarily different parts were in it.

It is now back to its normal self consisting of its normal parts that have worked before, and now no matter what I do, I absolutely cannot finish installing Windows XP on the computer.

Parts:
Maxtor 80gb harddrive
Foxconn 6100K8MA motherboard
AMD 3700+ San Diego Processor
x1300xt graphics card
512mb infineon memory + 1024mb adata memory
liteon cd/dvd drive
350 watt psu (forgot brand but can find out if needed)
USRobotics 56k modem (I live in the middle of nowhere :) )

The problem I have is every time I install windows xp onto my hard drive, It formats the drive (full format, not quick) and copies over the files. It then restarts, and on restart, it never loads the operating system. I get the error message

Error Loading Operating System

Here is what I have tried:

-tried alternate ide cables
-tried alternate hard drives (a 4.2gb drive had the same problem)
-tried alternate cd/dvd drives

-tried messing around with hdd detection (LBA, Large, CHS, etc)
-booted to recovery console and have tried fixboot and fixmbr during fixmbr, it tells me my mbr looks to be corrupt or different than it expects.
-burned a bootdisk floppy and tried fdisk /mbr

-tried different methods of formatting the disk (In linux, with recovery console, during windows installation, in another computer)
-tried booting with bare minimum hardware (mobo, cpu, 512 mem, hdd and cd/dvd drive with keyboard)
-tried starting install on another computer and then putting the harddrive into the problem computer

-tried repositioning hdd and cd/dvd drive in pretty much every combination on the ide cables in both primary and secondary slots as both master, and cable select each time.
-Both the 80gig and 4.2gig have been scanned for bad sectors
-I have set all settings in my bios to default as well. The 80gig and 4.2 gig are both recognized on startup as LBA disks with correct sizes and names.

Other things to note:
The 80gig and 4.2gig drives both work wonderful in the computer I am using now and boot just fine when I've tried installing windows xp on them.

I doubt it is hardware conflict as these pieces of hardware have all worked together before.

Recently I listened closely to the 80gig try to boot and it seems to rev up 5 times before it says error loading operating system, so it seems that the motherboard is having a hard time finding the master boot record... just my thought.

One time during installation, before copying files, it prompted me for my Windows XP disk, which was already in the cd/dvd drive. I took it out, placed it back, and it went fine, until the reboot where I got the usual error.

As a desperate attempt, I tried to install a copy of windows vista on it for the purpose of seeing if it would finish install and boot. Once during installation, it quit detecting the cd/dvd drive and no matter what, I couldn't get it to find its own disk. Another time during installation of Vista, I encountered a BSOD which basically told me it was having a hard time accessing the hdd.

The hard drives and cd/dvd drives are now on their own ide cables to make sure there is no problems like this again, but it is too soon as to say if this problem is hardware failure, because I've tried alternate cd/dvd drives with the same problems.



The computer in need of help currently works with a small 3.1 gb hard drive with windows xp installed on it. It only boots with windows xp in the cd drive, which I find really odd. If the windows xp disk is removed from the computer, I get the message "Error Loading Operating System" and it revs up 5 times just like with the 4.2gig and 80gig drives.

Currently the 80gb drive is slaved in the computer and works wonderful once the poor little 3.1gb drive loads up windows xp.

Thanks to anyone who can possibly attempt to help me fix this problem, it has been bugging me for weeks now. If I need to clarify something, please let me know, I typed this up pretty quick and might have even forgotten a thing or two I've tried. Sorry for the long read, I'm trying to include as many details as possible. :)
 
probally a mobo failure
or,
ive had the same problem, i loaded xp on 2 hdds and w/ no luck so i tried to put one as master, and one as slave, booted pc w/cd in drive and it booted upto the last few setup requirments then i removed the slave and its worked to this day(its the current pc im using now)
 
You can format the drive, read file from it but no go on seeing Windows installed. That sounds all too familiar with a few ide drives here lately when problems running existing installations were suddenly seen on two otherwise normal systems. In both the main drive was replaced to see XP go right on again and see both running.

The heads on the two drives in those builds were toast! You could retrieve off them but not install Windows. In fact one saw the primary deleted to see if a new one could be created. No way! The other one saw files and folders copied to the then larger storage drive and remains onhand until photos and personal files are found.
 
That is how I got the little 3.1 gig drive to load windows. Windows is running great on the 3.1gig drive as long as the windows cd is in the cd drive, otherwise I get "Error loading operating system." The 3.1 is currently master, and the 80gb is currently slave because I'm using it for storage since it works fine once windows boots up.

Edit: @PC eye. I can install windows on all of the drives in another computer and they work just fine, so that possibility is ruled out, thanks for trying.
 
This might be reaching, but have you checked your ram? See if the timings are correct in the bios.

I had problems installing windows a couple of times, it was always the Ram timings that were off. Once I corrected it windows loaded fine. Or it could be a bad stick of ram. Its just one more thing to check at least.
 
MitchellLutzke said:
That is how I got the little 3.1 gig drive to load windows. Windows is running great on the 3.1gig drive as long as the windows cd is in the cd drive, otherwise I get "Error loading operating system." The 3.1 is currently master, and the 80gb is currently slave because I'm using it for storage since it works fine once windows boots up.

Edit: @PC eye. I can install windows on all of the drives in another computer and they work just fine, so that possibility is ruled out, thanks for trying.
Click to expand...

The boot.ini file is obviously pointing at the optical drive rather then the installation on the drive itself. Try unplugging the 80gb and boot up to the recover console to use the "Fixboot" and "Fixmbr" commands to correct boot information that way. Without the 80gb in the way the new boot information will be seen on the 3.2gb drive.

Don't rule out flaky heads on a drive quite yet. Bad or mismatched memory even or simply how you have the drive jumpers set will effect things too. What make is the 3.1gb drive there? Not Maxtor probably? You might have to have the 80gb set to cable select rather then master on that particular board. I see that enough with prebuilds where the host drive is set that way. Otherwise review the FaQ section at Maxtor.
 
Just to clarify, my main goal is to get Windows to boot off of the 80gb drive, I know I forgot to mention this, so sorry about that. I was just mentioning that for some strange reason, windows xp boots off of the small 3.1 gig drive only when the cd for windows xp is in the disk drive, just incase it was a symptom of the main problem. I mentioned it booting off of the 3.1gb drive so that we know that the computer can at least can boot a windows installation, ruling out a complete hardware failure in places like the motherboard.

For now I will try fixboot and fixmbr again on the 3.1gb so that the computer will at least boot windows xp off of the hard drive itself without relying on having a disk in the drive. I will also try installing windows xp on the 80gb drive with varying ram configurations. I'll look at ram timings as well. I'll also try moving around the jumpers again.

I should be able to get back to you guys fairly quick if something I do doesn't kill the windows xp installation on the 3.1gb drive, if it does, it could be a while before I say anything, I'll be back :)

Almost forgot, the 3.1 gig drive is a Fujitsu from the windows 98 era, the 4.2 gig is a Seagate U4 Model ST3411A. Also if it helps, the Fujitsu is the only drive to previously have windows 98 on it before I reformatted it and installed windows xp on it.
 
To avoid any problems with the present installation after seeing the boot information corrected unplug the smaller drive when going to try again with the 80gb. Try setting it up as a stand alone installation there. In other words run that as a single drive system to see to avoid any changes with the small drive and to see if the two drives are competing with each other like a resource/hardware conflict of some type.
 
Thanks for your suggestions so far everyone. I've tried swapping in and out both sets of ram, I've checked ram timings, tried a great many jumper combinations, including cable select, and after the first part of installation of windows xp I tried fixmbr and fixboot again, but to no avail.

When I try to install xp on the 80gb hard drive, the only drives attached are the 80gb drive and the cd/dvd drive. I'm trying to keep hardware to a minimum until I have a working windows installation on the 80gb hard drive.

As an experiment, I did the first installation part of the installation (formatting and copying of files) on the 80gb hard drive. I then plugged in the 3.1gb drive into the master position so its boot loader would take over, and moved the 80gb drive to a secondary position. The boot loader detected the installation of windows xp on the 80gb hard drive and immediately chose it because its installation wasn't done.

I had a black screen for about 20-30 seconds, and then an error message came up telling me hal.dll was missing or corrupt in the folder <windows root>/system32/ . For the fun of it, I'm thinking about finding and copying that file over to the system32 folder just to see what would happen.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, I really appreciate everyones help and suggestions so far :)
 
The hal.dll error is due to the incomplete installation seen on the 80gb drive there. Once the setup files are completely unpacked all files are seen as the Windows is running then.

The real question now would be just how old the board is on that system. If too old you would often use an overlay bios bypass utility like EZ-Bios since old board couldn't fully detect the larger drives coming out at the time. The LBA mode may have to set from auto to user just to see Windows installed.
 
The board is a socket 939 that was in use for around a year, that I purchased from Newegg. I'm fairly sure the motherboard is at least a year or two newer than the drive I'm using.

Here's a history of what this drive has all done.

It originally came in a Dell Dimension 3000 (way before I knew anything about computers). It then went into the 939 motherboard configuration of parts. Then it went into the computer I am using now, (parts in my sig except for the 320gb hard drive). I later installed windows vista onto it while it was in this current computer. I then got the 320gb hard drive and put it into the computer I'm currently using, and the 80gb went back into its original socket 939 motherboard configuration which it is still in.

so it went:
celeron setup: windows xp
939 setup: windows xp
am2 setup: windows xp
am2 setup: windows vista
am2 setup: backup storage
939 setup: (working on that now)

The bios should be able to detect the drive just fine, it shows up right in the bios with the right capacity and its worked on this motherboard and exact setup before.
 
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So you had Vista on the drive and now want to put XP back on it?! Vista being a newer version does make a few changes to things like a new boot folder that you simply won't be able to manually delete. On the last build when multibooting two versions of XP along with Vista I simply deleted the original primary to see XP go onto a new one there.

Here I have an old WD 120gb I ended up loaning out when a friend couldn't get XP to install onto a Sata I type drive. That was one drive that went through several builds and finally saw problems with XP on it. The primary was removed after files were retrieved and now no new primary can be created on it! Likewise someone else had a year old Hitachi drive seeing the same problems with Windows and that was replaced. The drive heads were toast on both of those while still being able to read from and even copying a few small files to.
 
The only thing that strikes me as odd is that I can delete and remake primary partitions on the 80gb hard drive on another computer just fine. I've even installed windows xp on the 80gb drive and ran it without problems in another computer. I'm starting to think there is something wrong with the socket 939 motherboard itself.

Currently I'm running windows off of the small 3.1gb drive on the 939 motherboard and its running ok. The way I see it, as long as I don't have to install too much to the C: drive, I will just use the 80gb as a secondary drive and install all programs to it, which works. It still is a shame I can't just run windows xp off of the 80gb drive by itself and not have to have the 3.1gb drive, but oh well, I guess it isn't too bad. I still don't think this is a hard drive problem because I have another 4.2gb drive that will not install windows xp fully on this setup either, It could be a problem with the motherboard.

I don't have the money or desire to get a new motherboard yet because it really isn't worth it, as this is only a secondary computer to use when other people are using the main one, so I'll probably just go with having windows xp installed on the 3.1gb drive.
 
Have you tried updating the bios at all? With the 80gb seeing no bad sectors or heads while some old small drive runs fine it suggests that the LBA support generally seen without regard on the newer boards is lost somehow like a corrupted bios programming. Without any other faults found it seems to point that way.
 
Without a flaw found when trying the drive on another system while seeing small drives as you will note work like gravy that seems to point at the bios not properly detecting the larger drive like the board should. I ran the two 500gb sata now still in use on the last 939 build and saw two 250gb ide drives on the older Socket A build without problems. That would be seem to be the last thing to try there.
 
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