Hello,

A friend of mine felt like formating his computer, because it was filled with a lot of crap and really needed to be cleaned out (he hasn't reinstalled for quite a while).
He figured out how to get it formated himself and he tried to reinstall windows xp pro. Then he told me he could not get it to work and handed it over to me. I have tried to reinstall with a windows xp pro disc and a vista 64 bit (info on the system later). With the vista 64 disc, it just hangs when it has loaded, won't even go into the install. With the xp it installs, but I'm not completely sure if it actually installed it all, seemed a little fast. At least, when it reboots and tried to start it just hangs right after the "windows loading" and shows a black screen and nothing else happens (waited for 10 min. to see if anything would happen). I read a little on the internet and decided to see what would happen if I removed 2 gb of the 4 gb total. Tried a clean reinstall and the same happen with both discs. And now I got no more ideas (haven't had a lot of trouble with this for a long time, so I'm a bit rusty about what to do hehe).

It seems like the motherboard is a MSI, it says "K9N SLI A7250NMS" when it starts up. (I don't have the right specs here, but I'm able to get them if it has to be even more exact).
The CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 x2 5000+
The ram blocks are 4x1gb Corsair 800 mhz - CM2X1024-6400
The hard disk is a Maxtor STM3250 - 300 or so gb.

There might be someone who had experienced it before and has asked about it, but I don't really know what to search for.

I hope you can help me out here

Thanks,
LeCattez

Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I'm actually able to go into Safemode without any trouble.

Go to safe Mode
Run Device Manager (Start->Run-> Devmgmt.msc)
Expand the Display Adaptor
Then right click on the adaptor, and remove it
You can also remove any other devices that have a yellow querrie mark on them
Restart

Did have some questions but follow instructions as directed by kimsland

There hasn't been installed any drivers yet (haven't been into windows, since it gives me the black screen =/), so there is nothing to remove in there. (no "display" section has been made yet).

Please try this: (In Safe Mode)

Manual steps to run Chkdsk from My Computer or Windows Explorer

• Open My Computer, and then right-click the hard disk that you want to check.
• Click Properties, and then click Tools.
• Under Error-checking, click Check Now. A dialog box that shows the Check disk options is displayed

Use one of the following procedures:

• • To run Chkdsk in read-only mode, click Start.
• • (tick) To repair errors without scanning the volume for bad sectors, select the Automatically fix file system errors check box
• • To repair errors, locate bad sectors, and recover readable information, select the Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors check box.

Note If one or more of the files on the hard disk are open, you will receive the following message:
Click Yes to schedule the disk check, and then restart your computer to start the disk check.

Wait until Chkdsk finishes Checking / Repairing any faults
Windows will then either restart your computer or continue loading Normally.

Ok I tried doing as you said, and I was able to get into windows. After 1 minute or so it froze though and I wasn't able to do anything (placed the "My computer" icon on the desktop).

Afterwards when I tried starting up again it just hanged at the windows loading screen or the black one right after. Didn't seem like it worked out. The windows has SP2 if that's of any help.

Thanks,

LeCattez

Can you still get into safe mode? If so, from safe mode try installing as many of the correct drivers as you can manage without rebooting between each one. Start with the motherboard chipset drivers.

I can get into safe mode without any trouble. No problems there. It seems like the MSI disk (for the motherboard) wants internet access to be able to install the drivers. At least when I run the autorun feature, there are no drivers shown. There might be some on the disk, but I don't know which ones to look for if there is.
I tried installing the drivers for the gfx card, but the install could not start in safe mode.

How is system set up:

How many partitions and what filesystems?
Did he Clear all the partitions before formatting?
Do you know that the memory modules configuration (do all four slots use the same Ram type)?

Has he changed any other Hardware Components? Did he Mess with the Bios settings?

Discription of problem points to some Hardware setup problem.

Two partitions, one being 58gb (for windows) and the rest being 200gb. At the moment I have just tried and it should be able to install on those two. I don't know if my friend wants anything specific, so I have just chosen those for now. I have tried with the fast NTFS and the normal one. At the moment I'm just using the normal.

I think he removed the partitions, made some new and formatted them (and installed windows afterwards).

As I said, there were four ram blocks in the beginning, I have taken two out, so the last two should be identic (we normally buy two of each). He told me all four are of the same brand (corsair, like I stated in my first post).

The only thing he has changed was his dvd-drive for a blu-ray drive. It can read the windows cd's so I doubt it can cause that much trouble.
I honestly don't know if he has touched something he shouldn't have, but I have put the bios back to the default.

Thanks,
LeCattez

Edit: With that I don't mean he's a total newbie to it. He has reinstalled his computer and the previous before, without all this trouble of what I recall (I haven't 'tried' to repair his computers before at least).

Thanks for Info:

Reason I asked is Because if you cant get vista to even enter setup or xp to start in normal mode, there must be some issue other than drivers.

This sort of thing normally happens when you have a bad install or a problem with the set up of the HDD or some bios settings. If you have a spare Hdd. Try using that to ascertain that it is not a hdd problem. if that fails then its definately a hardware issue with your Hardware setup.

If you have a partition on your own pc without on os on it you could install on that to see if it works. (only try if you have a backup of your own system).

Vista and xp If installed properly should start in normal mode even without Mainboard drivers installed.

Thats why i think you have A hardware setup issue.

Hope this is helpful.
pcaceit

I don't currently have another harddrive (he has loaned my normal pc, writing from a laptop atm) and I don't feel like opening my normal pc. He might have a harddrive himself (from his previous computer and I could ask him to try put it in.

At least it has no trouble running safe mode. It has been turned on for at least 1 hour without going down, so something must be right. It also worked fine before the formating, so I don't really see where this "problem" comes from. Guess I'll give it a last go and then get him to try changing hard drives sunday, when he gets home.

Thanks,

LeCattez

You could reflash the bios with the latest version for the motherboard. http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=447616 Not for the fainthearted if you have no floppy drive.....