My PC cannot start windows

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farstar

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Hello, I am new in this forum. I live in Spain (continental Europe). One day I was working in my PC, light went down, and when I restarted my PC, it did not work anymore. What "did not work" means is that when the black screen of windows (with the windows logo) appears, it only stays there a fraction of a second, and the computer restarts again.

When I use the official Windows CD I own, and I want to even format the HD and to do a new installation, I cannot. The reason is that there is no HD appearing there to format. I do not know if this is part of the problem, or if it has something to do with the fact that I have 2 S-ATA HDs (and no IDE one). I remember when I installed my first HD I had to use a floppy with the drivers. It worked well. But now, when the Windows installation starts, I press F6 and when I insert my floppy, it does not recognize it. So, I even cannot format my HDs!

I have been able to use a CD live of Ubuntu without problems.

I went to a PC shop, and they told me I had to change the mainboard, the processor, and the memory (the PSU works, apparently). I think it is excessive. In fact, it is not a bad idea, because I own a 754 board and an Athlon 64 at 2.8 Ghz, but I have 2 GB of DDR400 that I would hate to throw away.

Any ideas?
 
there should be a setting in your bios to set your hard drives to ide mode, i dont think you would have to replace your motherboard and stuff, does windows start in safe mode?
 
there should be a setting in your bios to set your hard drives to ide mode, i dont think you would have to replace your motherboard and stuff, does windows start in safe mode?


Thank you for your reply. No, windows cannot start in safe mode (it happens the same as before: it does something, but after a few seconds, and in the middle of loading, it restarts the computer).

I checked my bios, and I do not remember this setting (but of course, it could well be: I was not checking for that). Do you know the probable name appearing for this setting in the bios? My board is a K8V-SE.
 
i can't believe that money grabbing store told you you need to upgrade everything :mad: that is pretty low. from what i can ascertain your pc is working fine but the filesystem has been corrupted, damaging your windows install. you can't re-install because it won't detect your sata drive. from here there are a couple of options. you can try slipstreaming or trying another disk if you think this one is at fault.
 
hmmm sounds like to get windows to install again you need to have sata drivers for your motherboard. then it can see the harddrives.

go to the motherboard manufactuers site and save the drivers on a floppy disc.

load the windows install off the CD as soon as it shows the blue screen hit F6 a few times, it will then come to a screen saying if you want to load a driver press S . do that and then put in the floppy disk and press enter it will load the driver.

now it will go back to that screen and show the driver at top. press enter and it should find the harddrives now so you can install



edit: I just looked up your mobo and it uses sata raid. so YES you do need those drivers on a floppy to load using F6 during the beginning of windows install :)
 
Thank you for the replies. I have gone to asus, and looked for the K8V SE Deluxe, Socket 754, and I have found the downloads. There are several chapters (BIOS, BIOS-utilities, audio, IDE, LAN, RAID, utilities, others, and manual).

I have selected RAID. There, I have three files (for windows xp, non-64 bits):

VIA VT6420 (VT8237) SATA RAID Driver V5.2.3790.310 for Windows 64bit XP/2003.

VIA VT6420 (VT8237) SATA RAID Driver Package Version 2.20D WHQL

and

Promise 64_bit for 64-bit Driver 1.00.1.39


I guess that the relevant one is:

VIA VT6420 (VT8237) SATA RAID Driver Package Version 2.20D WHQL

but this file is 7.24 MBytes, so I think it does not fit in a floppy (max 1.44 MBytes?).

1. Is this the file I should download?
2. If yes, how to fit it in a floppy?
 
hmmm not too sure, but I tell ya what. I am gonna check out that site and figure out what files you need. brb
 
ok I got it for ya. download this zip file http://www.mediamax.com/networkgeek/Hosted/satadrivers.zip

extract it to floppy and that should be what you need. it will just be 600k.

press f6 when windows asks and then load that floppy disc.

it is the driver from Via's site but it is for the controller that matches your board so it should work.

thank you. I wish we had in Spain such a business culture and in the US. We are only in the way ...
 
glad to help. please post back and let me know if that is the correct file.

also if you have any other questions dont hesitate to ask. :)
 
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