Dying MOBO?

[superdave1984]

Lady at work brings me her PC because it is in an endless reboot loop. It's an eMachines W3105. I go about all the normal things to fix and got it to boot. Sent it home and the next day she says it is doing the same thing. So this time I decide to back up, format, reinstall thinking possibly there is a HAL issue or some corrupted install files. Even though I tried a repair install first that ended up doing the same thing.

So here's what happened. During setup I get a pop up saying that "this hardware cannot be installed. CDROM. please consult your manufacturer" Or something like that. Then a couple seconds later another one about the card reader. Then later on, "Setup cannot install this hardware. SYSTEM"
And setup continues along. Then when it reboots it goes to the black screen to choose normal, safe mode, etc. I can reboot then and do a repair install which will boot. I can install drivers, it reads CD's and DVD's, gets on the internet etc. But Windows updates do not work. I get a Generic host processes error.

One other oddity, during all of this I have to use 2 keyboards. A USB board to hit any key to boot from CD, then a PS/2 board to type in CD key and other stuff.

 

[KSoD]

Last time i had that issue i used GParted and reformatted the drive to NTFS. During the selection process for XP use the Full format option not the quick. There is a bad sector or something on the drive which is causing this issue where the disk can not be "read" to install the file.

A full format with the XP install CD or GParted should resolve this issue and allow XP to install and go through.

 

[superdave1984]

Last time i had that issue i used GParted and reformatted the drive to NTFS. During the selection process for XP use the Full format option not the quick. There is a bad sector or something on the drive which is causing this issue where the disk can not be "read" to install the file.

A full format with the XP install CD or GParted should resolve this issue and allow XP to install and go through.

Well that's the thing. I have done a full NTFS format and reinstalled XP. Twice. Both times I get the errors and a repair install immediately after that went right through. I left the install running when I left this morning so I will check to see if I can get updates when I get home. I ran chkdsk before the first format and it found and fixed errors. Ran Memtest for 9 passes, no errors. Can't understand why I have to use a USB keyboard to boot to the CD and a PS/2 keyboard to type. I can use either one in the BIOS though. This is what makes me think the MOBO is taking a dive.

 

[superdave1984]

RESOLVED
I think. I put in a different H/D and XP installed without a hitch.

 

[superdave1984]

Return of the problem. The old drive I used was only an 8GB drive. When I cloned the drive, the clone didn't work. I assumed the larger drive was bad so I finally ordered a new drive. Now after a format of the new drive, I am back in the same boat as before. "Windows cannot load the installer for device Disk Drive"

This is a new 80GB drive. Memtest turns up no errors. I know it's possible that a new drive could be bad, but this is annoying.

 

[superdave1984]

UPDATE: Did a quick format and the install went right through. Downloaded windows updates, reboot, all I get is the splash screen. For 14 hours. Running killdisk now then I will try again. This will be the last time I try with this machine.