P.C. refuses to boot OS.

Ronan|Raven

Hi there I replaced the motherboard in a Compaq that was running windows xp. Now when it goes to load the OS from the drive on ide 0 it just stays there giving me a black screen and flashing cursor. I have checked to see if the partition is active. Tried repairing the MBRa all to no avail. Could it be there is something that the HDD is looking for that was on the old compaq? Would their drives be "locked" to their own motherboard?

str8_away

AFAIK XP is not the same as Win98.
When the OS is installed it also stored some info about the system. It will not boot unless the information are correct.

If you can try to boot into safe mode but press F8 just before your PC start to load OS.

or you can try to boot from CD and then try "restore"

Ronan|Raven

I cant even get as far as to get into safe mode.. If I could I might have some chance of getting it back running.

vibe666

might not be able to get it up and running again without re-installing and re-activating the OS afaik.

assuming this is an official registered version of XP, you probably won't be able to change something as major as the mobo without having to re-install the OS and re-register it.

when you first install XP it takes a snapshot of your hardware so it knows what you do and don't have. this is specific enough that even if you use identical hardware it will know it's different.

you can gwet away with adding another drive or changing minor components like a graphics card, but the mobo is hte main part of the PC, and with a different one installed, the OS is likely to think it's on a different PC altogether, which MS won't let you do.

best bet if it is a legit copy, is to ring M$ (they hae a number in Dublin) and ask them what you need to do. might be something simple if you're lucky, but most likely it will mean a re-install of the OS again.

Ronan|Raven

I had feeling that would be the case! It is a 100% legit copy btw Thing that puzzles me is that when it is in the repair process and it has reloaded the files to the HDD it simply will not boot what so ever from it when it reboots for the next step. Now as you say the fact that it takes a snapshot this is probably what is causing it. Actually just tried a reinstall and it still will not boot from the hdd for the next stage of setup..

(FDISK! :d)

vibe666

if its booting from the CD, then it's either a duff HD (I'm assuming the HD is visible in the bios at least) or you'll need to format the hard drive before it will let you put anything back on it.

if you boot from a floppy, can you copy files to and from the HD?

try another HD and see what happens.

if you've changed the mobo, there could be a problem with the primary IDE socket or even the cable.

if you have a second HD you could try as a test, that would tell us more.

I'm assuming there is valuable data on the old XP installation, that you want, so either see if you can do a re-install on a seperate HD, and use the old one as a secondary one to get the data off, or get some partitioning software and create a second partition on the same drive and re-install the OS to that and then copy all the data from teh old partiton accros before deleting it.

is it NTFS or FAT32?

whosurpaddy

have you checked the master/slave jumpers on all hard drives are in the right place? have u replaced any of the hard drives?

changing a motherboard on its own shouldnt cause too much of a problem. xps hardware checking function(not sure of proper name) is such that unless you change most major pieces of hardware it does not constitute a new system, ie, if you keep the same NIC you can change almost every other piece of hardware.
also you can change the same piece of hardware multiple times without it constituting multiple changes, ie, if you change a gfx card once and then again, it only counts as one change.

hope this helps

Dempsey

I pretty sure if you change so many components and xp thinks its in another pc all it will do is ask for itself to be reactivated.

Check that all connections are properly seated. Can try the old board and see what happens.

vibe666

Originally posted by whosurpaddy
xps hardware checking function(not sure of proper name) is such that unless you change most major pieces of hardware it does not constitute a new system, ie, if you keep the same NIC you can change almost every other piece of hardware.

not quite true.

you can only make 3 significant changes before XP sees it as not being the same system.

that said you are correct about being able to change the same component more than once without it impacting this figure.

I also think Dempsey is right in saying it should only ask you to reactivate windows rather than not booting at all, so it might well be something else.

you didn't put the primary and secondary IDE cables the wrong way round did you? it might cause the problem, but still allow you to see the HD and boot from the CD, but not the HD if it's on the wrong channel.

Ronan|Raven

The cables are all in correctly Im just going to bite the bullet and backup any valuable documents etc and format the lot as I need to see the back of it in 2 hours The old motherboard is as dead as a dodo that was the reason for changing it. Thanks for the replies. Appreciated.

Dempsey

What exactly killed the old board?

Ronan|Raven

No idea tbh some component on the mobo was faulty. After checking it with all new components (cpu, memory, psu, hdd etc) It was definitly showing faulty. Anyway tis all working happily now.. just about

vibe666

glad to hear you got it sorted in the end anyway.