Just wanted to share a somewhat frustrating and confusing ordeal I ran into last night, but it seems to be fixed now.
I got a new 500GB WDC SATA HDD last night. I formatted it, created a partition, and installed Windows XP Pro. I was on an installation frenzy, getting my computer up-to-speed with all of my favorite apps. Then, I installed iTunes and Quicktime, but there was a problem running iTunes for the first time because a preexisting old version of Quicktime (7.1) prevented the installation of the necessary 7.55 version. Anyway, I uninstalled the old version, reinstalled the new version, then restarted.
I don't know if it was from all the crazy installation I was doing for an hour straight, but when it got to the part where it says "Windows XP" and has the blue bars running across, it just reset the computer again.
This time, it went to the normal safe mode selection screen where I can choose safe mode or start normally. Thing is, I couldn't select any options...my keyboard strokes wouldn't read! It went to the blue bars again, and automatically rebooted. So I pop in the Windows XP CD, hoping to boot from the CD and do some sort of repair.
This time, it says "hit any key to boot from CD," which is what I wanted to do. Only thing is, it wouldn't detect my keystrokes, and it again went to that screen asking me to choose between safe mode and normal. Again, my arrow keys weren't read, and it rebooted after seeing the Windows XP bars again. Basically, I was stuck in an endless rebooting cycle.
At first, I was thinking my new Western Digital HDD was shot from all the crazy installing. "Maybe I've gotten my first bad one ever." But then I decided to go into BIOS and load "fail-safe defaults." Don't know what it means, but "fail-safe" sure sounded good. This time, I was actually able to select safe mode and get into Windows XP!
From there, I did a system restore to before the iTunes installation (which I doubt was to blame anyway), and things are back up and running. I was *this* close to quitting on my HDD.
Anyway, I have NO idea what happened, or how it got fixed, or how to even prevent it from happening again. All I know is that I'm glad it's working now...maybe you guys know more about what happened, but my conclusion is, computers are still weird and finnicky.
I got a new 500GB WDC SATA HDD last night. I formatted it, created a partition, and installed Windows XP Pro. I was on an installation frenzy, getting my computer up-to-speed with all of my favorite apps. Then, I installed iTunes and Quicktime, but there was a problem running iTunes for the first time because a preexisting old version of Quicktime (7.1) prevented the installation of the necessary 7.55 version. Anyway, I uninstalled the old version, reinstalled the new version, then restarted.
I don't know if it was from all the crazy installation I was doing for an hour straight, but when it got to the part where it says "Windows XP" and has the blue bars running across, it just reset the computer again.
This time, it went to the normal safe mode selection screen where I can choose safe mode or start normally. Thing is, I couldn't select any options...my keyboard strokes wouldn't read! It went to the blue bars again, and automatically rebooted. So I pop in the Windows XP CD, hoping to boot from the CD and do some sort of repair.
This time, it says "hit any key to boot from CD," which is what I wanted to do. Only thing is, it wouldn't detect my keystrokes, and it again went to that screen asking me to choose between safe mode and normal. Again, my arrow keys weren't read, and it rebooted after seeing the Windows XP bars again. Basically, I was stuck in an endless rebooting cycle.
At first, I was thinking my new Western Digital HDD was shot from all the crazy installing. "Maybe I've gotten my first bad one ever." But then I decided to go into BIOS and load "fail-safe defaults." Don't know what it means, but "fail-safe" sure sounded good. This time, I was actually able to select safe mode and get into Windows XP!
From there, I did a system restore to before the iTunes installation (which I doubt was to blame anyway), and things are back up and running. I was *this* close to quitting on my HDD.
Anyway, I have NO idea what happened, or how it got fixed, or how to even prevent it from happening again. All I know is that I'm glad it's working now...maybe you guys know more about what happened, but my conclusion is, computers are still weird and finnicky.