Failed to reinstall XP Pro puzzle..

[Mavark]

Hi, I am hoping there is a "you failed" wizard reading this...
Sorry if this is the wrong place to post, kinda late here and im a bit tired.



I got fed up with random programs starting to decide that did not want to run/open/work at all for no aparant reason. im quite computer literate but i have the wrost luck in the known universe.

any way, I got so fed up with the progs (Itunes 10, Steam and some others which im not to bothered about) not working and still not working after a reinstallation and asking questions on the relative support pages(no awnsers), I went into my Local " Yet-To-Be-Tamed" techy shop and got my self a Xp pro SP2 boot disk(currantly useing SP3), I bung it in, as he told me how to "repair" reinstall so I wouldn't loose any data/settings ( I wondered weather it was possible, but what the ____ I'l give it a shot.) So I stuck the cd in, it auto ran, i chose windows installer....some dark magic happend, an error message happend (sorry i forget what it said..probably VERY important, something about formatting) i click ok...it continues..cool it restarts... runs the ASUS ...what ever it is i got with the MB, enters the Os starting screen's, Hits POST start up....Then goe's blank.. not even a mouse...screen stays black keyboard still lit...CD drive still spinning...nothing... then a new sound happens, Kinda like a dissaproval Honk/burrr noise. i can enter the start upsettings place..erm BIOS?(forget what its called) and allso i can enter the "what do you want to boot from" menu, but no setting or boot device setting will get me anywhere. What on earth have i done... this is why i hope there is a wizard reading.

Oh allso I dont even get as far as the "press any key to boot from disc" prompt.



I have searched google for about a day... trying every veriation of "i failed at reinstalling win xp pro" i can think of.

Aparantly..NO-ONE fails as hard as i do, as i haven't found a single person who ahs experianced this. 0.o

I have given up with the how ever many GB of music...game saves, edited docs, everything, I will happyly wipe everything just to get it to work again. i just dont care about saving my data any more, if i can save it awesome, but i wont be fussed if i loose it all...



I will pop back into my "yet to be tamed" techy shop and beg them to help me.

but for now. you guys will have to put up with me for abit.

OH nearly forgot, i am unable to get into safemode...microsoft support pages were no help as i couldnt get my machine to get to the windows loading screen and safe mode isnt mentioned anywhere, nor any keys i press loads it up...just POST settings and bam...hang time.

Since this i have poped the HDD into my other computer and copied most of what i want to keeponto the other comps HDD (and accedently deleated a hole 25 or so GB of music ¬¬). I then formated it into NTFS format, which took about 2 and a half hours. Then put the drive back into my machine thinking that it would have wiped all the silly settings and give the disk a clean HD to work with, "Swear word", Still the same problem, nothing i press will get me as far as the "press any key to boot from disc" just post settings then blank screen hanging indefinatly..



Sorry for the spelling and mass amounts of rubbish i talk and Thank you for any responce. bad or good.



cheers,

Mav

P.S. if you want specs, ask, i built it from ground up last year.

 

[Mavark]

allso in addition of my last post

Today i tested ram, by taking them out systematically trying to boot with both 2gb sticks in each of the four slots, BIOS POST see's them and accepts both sticks in both channles, so im guessing my ram is ok, i have unpluged all my usb devices, keyboard, mouse, xbox controller. no change,tried unplugging my Graphics card, then realised i didnt have another moniter plug, so that im suposing is fine as i can see stuff. but still, unable to gain access to safe mode, xpprosp2 disc boot or normal boot mode, seeing as my hard drive has been formatted to NTFS format im guessing ther is something else majorly wrong, i have reset the BIOS settings, cpu is back to normal speed, all settings are factory, and still, i get no responce past the BIOS POST settings. the hard drive can be seen and used by another computer, unable to install xp via another computer either.

I will take the entire pc to my techy and just say, puzzle time.

cheers for reading or what not.
Mav

 

[Mavark]

ok i gave up its in the hands of my techy.

 

[superty12]

Wow

Wow. Lets hope nobody gets that problem again. Closing Comments: You cannot do a repair install of SP3 with an SP2 CD. Not that anyone's failed like that before. Good thing. Always backup. Always. And sorry, but I think you need a new computer. The TechSpotters need to find out how that happened, how it is remotely possible, if it is to be prevented. The error message would have helped.
Edit: Don't try to install anything on that drive. Don't do it.

 

[Mavark]

SOLVED!


i got it back today, YAY. im running it with sp2 after the format for a while, while i finish a couple of games that didnt (for some reason) like SP3.

my techy sorted it out and gave me an answer.
Problem: one setting was wrong, something to do with the sata settings for my hard drive. It was set to Enhanced when it should have been set to Compatability. I have no idea what or where this setting is/does. but.. lesson learned.
and im happy to have a computer again =DDD