CRAIGFIN

I've just built a new Micro ATX PC with new everything apart from my Seagate 80GB hard drive which I transfered from my old PC. My problem is that it won't boot, it goes to the blue screen of death everytime saying to perform CHKDSK (check disk). I can't get myself into a position to perform it though.

I've tried the basics like booting from the 6 XP bootup discs, booting from the XP CD ROM, booting in Safe Mode, etc. I still only get the blue screen telling me to perform CHKDSK.

My motherboard is an MSI RX480-M2 and the CPU is a AMD 64 Athlon 3200+. It also has new memory and PCIE graphics card. The HDD and DVD RW drive are both attached to IDE1 with the HDD as Master and the DVD drive as Slave.

The HDD worked perfectly fine in my old PC and everything else is brand new so I'm not looking at anything being defective just yet.

I can get into BIOS no problem. Can I get to the command prompt before the blue screen so I can perform CHKDSK?

Any ideas???

Craig.

bioforger

iTrader: (1)

If it's BSODing on XP CD Bootup, then there must be something amiss with how you've connected your hardware. Check the usual jumper settings, IDE cable connection. Check the RAM. Although this should be ok if you can get to the bios. Make sure DVDRom is the 1st bootable device. I would connect the DVDRom to IDE2 as master as well, as its not a good idea to slave your main DVDRom off the HDD anyway.

You could boot off a 98 floppy bootdisc to, and see if u can access the HDD that way.

Bit of a strange one as you would expect a BSOD only when youre in windows or maybe installing windows.

Kieran_Burns

iTrader: (1)

or a BSOD when the memory really starts getting hit.

I suggest you set the BIOS to setup defaults and check your memory timing is set correctly in BIOS for the RAM that you have bought

Danny B

I don't think the XP CD-ROM is capable of producing a BSOD, what's probably happening is the boot order hasn't been changed to boot from the CD-ROM or the copy of XP you have isn't bootable (not accusing you of piracy but some copies don't boot) and therefore the next available boot device is your old hard disk which is for completely different hardware.
That's my opnion anyway, could be completely wrong though..

lightning101

Check the temperature in th bios by monitoring it for a few minutes. If the CPU is overheating it will allow you to get so far through the XP install from CD then crash as it starts loading itself

jpor

iTrader: (1)

Worth running a Ram tester before you go any further that way you know that it isn't the RAM giving you grief. These can be downloaded from either www.microsoft.com/downloads and/or www.download.com do a search for memtest.

Scooby-Doo

Sounds to me like a memory problem once the ram kicks in. Use memtest 386 from a floppy or if not try building windows with 1 stick of memory and if that fails swap sticks.

viperkick

yerr sounds like a ram issue to me

how is it the right speed ram

CRAIGFIN

Nope, not a memory problem.

Just downloaded an XP setup disc from the internet which allowed me to do the whole Fdisk / Format c: thingy.

Worked a treat!!

Cheers for the help,

Craig.

Scooby-Doo

When you instal windows does everything appear fine until files start being loaded to the hard drive ?

Where in the UK are you. Happy to take a look if youre local.

Scooby-Doo

Great having young children, I can post at all hours

Scooby-Doo

The problem with bad memory is that it can work fine until the bad cluster is writtenn too. When the PC tries to recall the data it either doesn't come back or corrupted data comes back. Format etc could well work fine. I built a PC recently that had a dodgy stick and only showed itself on memtest and about 40 % into installing windows causing the BSOD.