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Thread ID: 97853 2009-03-01 23:52:00 Help! Installing Windows on new PC longlivelive03 (14666) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
752625 2009-03-01 23:52:00 Hey Guys/Gals,

I'm building a new computer for my buddy and we've got everything hooked up correctly (I'm assuming) but when we go to install Windows XP (Service Pack 2) - we get to the blue screen, where it says Press Enter to Install Windows, R to Repair, Esc. to Exit - when I press either Enter or R - it just restarts the computer. Any ideas on what this could be?

Here's the parts to his computer:

XFX PVT98GYDLU GeForce 9800 GT 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail

Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM

CORSAIR 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TWIN3X2048-1333C9 - Retail

Rosewill TU-155 II 500 Black 0.8mm cold rolled steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 500W Power Supply - Retail

ASRock P43Twins1600 LGA 775 Intel P43 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail

Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 Wolfdale 2.8GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80571E7400 - Retail

If you have any ideas on ways to troubleshoot - etc, as well? We've tried two XP discs, both restart at the same point, and have tried Vista, but that just seems to sit after loading the files (just a black screen).

Thanks!
longlivelive03 (14666)
752626 2009-03-01 23:55:00 Is the SATA interface for the HD on IDE or AHCI??? XP needs it to be IDE. jwil1 (65)
752627 2009-03-02 00:00:00 That's a good question - and unfortunately one that I'm not quite sure of. Where would I find this out? I can double check - I also tried this on Vista as well, but it just stayed at a black screen - so I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not, but thought I'd add that. Thanks! longlivelive03 (14666)
752628 2009-03-02 00:03:00 I would remove one of the RAM modules and try again with just the one module installed.
If it still faults swap them and try again.
CYaBro (73)
752629 2009-03-02 00:39:00 That's a good question - and unfortunately one that I'm not quite sure of. Where would I find this out? I can double check - I also tried this on Vista as well, but it just stayed at a black screen - so I'm not sure if that makes a difference or not, but thought I'd add that. Thanks!

Somewhere in the bios, under hardware or something
Blam (54)
752630 2009-03-02 01:55:00 Ok - checked, and it was set on IDE - I then switched it to AHCI and it didn't recognize a drive at all. So I switched it back to IDE - but in Bios, it doesn't show a hard drive in the IDE settings area (it has Sata 1-5 but they all say "Not Detected"). Not sure if the HDD should show up in that area or not. When I go to the boot menu - I see the 500 gb harddrive there, so it seems to be recognizing it from there.

Also, I tried taking out one of the ram modules, but it got stuck loading (right at the beginning, I couldn't get past the part to even select from boot menu or anything - I'm going to try to swap out the memory now and see what happens.

Any ideas on what else to try?

**Update**

I took out the one memory stick, and switched it with the other - and now it's loading up (got to the reformatting section and am currently reformatting the drive) - So I'm thinking the one stick was bad. I'll update this if I have any other snags, but I'm hoping that was it. I appreciate the help! Thanks!
longlivelive03 (14666)
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