Failing to boot XP

Status
Not open for further replies.
Hello, I would like some help troubleshooting this error I got at home on my "new" but used computer.

It has 2 HDD's, one SATA 250Gb (Lets call it HDA) and a 180Gb ATA100 (HDB).
It had already preinstalled windows XP on both the partitions.
So I took for granted to reinstall windows, but run into problems booting the CD. So I entered HDA windows, and started the installation from there by autorunning the CD.

Everything looked well, and it was time for a reboot. Great success, another boot option appeared as the windows installation.

Ran through the installation, got windows up and running, all drivers on etc etc.
Before I ended the night with a happy smile and a successful feeling, there was a app that required reboot for it to finish install. And this is where the nightmare turned up.

It got pass the windows loading screen, desktop appeared and BAM! Mouse frozen. Looked like the computer kept on loading, so I just waited. But the mouse never started working!

The taskbar icons didn't load up and I decided to force-reboot.
Same thing again, this is where I started removing hardware. WLAN card removed, no difference, I even down-clocked the CPU since it was at wrong FSB speeds when I got the computer.

But it was not this either. So I booted up the other windows to see if that one worked. And it did! But then I installed wlan card on it to get to internet, and was surfing littlebit, rebooted once and same problem.
Tried removing wlan card without success.

None of the windows on either HDA or HDB will boot up now, both freeze in a identical way. I have tried to boot in safe mode without success, same with "load with last known good configuration" or whatever the option was....

I bet I can get it to work through reinstalling windows, but this is to odd to be software issue.

Someone ran into something similar ever? It feels like it installs some hardware drivers and then freezes up, but this should not happen in safe mode, so I'm confused. Ideas? :/

Speccs:

CPU Intel Core2 1,86Ghz E6300
RAM 2x DDR2 512MB 667Mhz
MB Gigabyte GA-945PL-S3
HDD 250GB 7200rpm SATA2 and IDE ATA100 180GB (Unknown speccs)
DVD Samsung SH-S182M DVD+RW
ATI Radeon X1600PRO 256MB 128bit

PS: I got 7x200 running right now, meaning CPU @ 1.4Ghz :( And ram 533 (2.66 multiplier) since I thought this might be the cause, unstable CPU or something, but that didn't help.
 
A reinstall using just one drive is a good place to start...
If you are going to do a dual boot, read up on the mechanics of dual boot to a SATA and an ATA
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back