Odd issue with windows xp pro not recognising a disk

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Recently upgraded my system, new motherboard, video and RAM.
well, windows borks as usual, as I changed chipsets, so I proceed to do a repair install. (not wanting to reinstall from scratch again like I was forced to a couple weeks ago)
anyway, I uninstall a piece of software (AVG Free, the repair install apparently broke it) and reboot, I then get this:

Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.

Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information.

so I search a bit and find a Microsoft KB article, this one: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477/EN-US/
and follow it, trying methods 2-4, rebooting after each one. Well, method 4 finally worked. I proceeded to install the motherboard software (nforce 2 drivers) and it broke yet again with the same message. Tried a regular "Chkdsk /p" but that didn't work, had to do a full "chkdsk /r" for some reason. Well, it got working again and this time I got a couple reboots before it broke again (did win updates and it went *boom* this time)

I am running XP Pro SP2 with all the latest updates (installed from a copy of xp pro with SP2 slipstreamed on)

yet further weirdness, it Just happened again after I installed the video drivers, so I put the xp pro (sp2) CD in the drive to fire up the recovery console and rebooted, well, I didn't notice it and it actually made it to windows successfully, so I install the logitech mouse drivers, reboot and it happens again, so I reboot, same problem, do the same thing, put xp cd in, reboot, start typing and next thing I know, it's in windows. Ok, so I run a couple benchmarks and reboot the system, shows up again, reboot a couple more times and it shows up both times. plop the xp cd in and it suddenly works again.

yes, I was typing this up on another machine while I was mucking about with the system :)

anyone have any ideas what's going on? Apologies for the long post, but i'm trying to be through


system information:

motherboard: MSI K7N2 Delta2 FSR
Video: Leadtek A400 TDH (Geforce 6800 AGP w/ 128Meg of vram)

i've got three hard drives in the system (two optical drives as well, i've got a extra IDE controller in the system)
Hard drives 1 and 2 are primary and slave on the main motherboard controller
both optical drives are on the secondary motherboard controller
Hard drive 3 is on a extra IDE controller (but it's just data storage, nothing installed on it)

My partition setup (all of theese in order as on the disk)
HD1:
~170Meg FAT32 partition (Primary) (long story, used to dual boot 98se and xp, I don't anymore, it's a placeholder now)
logical:
The rest (~78Gig) NTFS

HD2:
logical:
10Gig NTFS
60Gig NTFS
~6.3Gig NTFS (xp's installed here)
 
RealBlackStuff said:
Your XP partition might be (nearly) full. You need at least 15% free.

When this started I had around 50% free space. Granted i've got a bit less, but i'm still at greater than 15%

besides, how would a lack of free space explain only booting when the xp cd is in the drive? (namely, when the xp cd is in, and I let it go past the "press any key to boot from CD" thing)
 
dunno

I have never found a repair or upgrade installation to work properly, I now resort to backing up my data and formatting and re-installing the drive from scratch, lot less hassles in the long run.
 
Swapping mobos and trying to save the 'old' installation is almost never going to work.
Bite in the sour apple and install from scratch, incl. the drivers from the new mobo, that came on a CD with it.
You'll have a much smoother Windoze.
Make a dual-boot, by installing on the C-Drive.
You can keep your old XP until everything has been 'ported' to the new partition.
 
RealBlackStuff said:
Swapping mobos and trying to save the 'old' installation is almost never going to work.
Bite in the sour apple and install from scratch, incl. the drivers from the new mobo, that came on a CD with it.
You'll have a much smoother Windoze.
Make a dual-boot, by installing on the C-Drive.
You can keep your old XP until everything has been 'ported' to the new partition.

then explain how i've done it three times now with no problems whatsoever.

I was somewhat hoping to avoid this, as I had just been forced to do a fresh reinstall like a week and a half before I got the motherboard. I'll have to drag out partition magic and resize the disk, though. (it's currently like really tiny, less than 200 meg total)

in retrospect, I probably should have done said fresh reinstall on the C drive, but well, hindsight is always 20/20
 
Freakazoid said:
I was somewhat hoping to avoid this, as I had just been forced to do a fresh reinstall like a week and a half before I got the motherboard. I'll have to drag out partition magic and resize the disk, though. (it's currently like really tiny, less than 200 meg total)


well, just did that and it appears to be working. now to begin the long process of reinstalling everything *again* (what I had hoped to aovid, as I had just finished getting most everything reinstalled)

and so, the reboot spree begins (blasted windows... you look at it funny and you need a reboot)
 
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