[joe2tiger]

• AMD XP 2800+
• Gigabyte GA-7NNXP Motherboard
• 1024 MB of Samsung DDR SDRAM @ 400MHz (2 x 512 modules)
• Asylum BFG NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 /w 256MB DDR RAM
• Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 200GB -7200 RPM -8MB Cache -Ultra ATA/133
• Nion Window Case w/ 420 Watt Power supply
• 16x DVD Samsung

On my previously running system, my motherboard (Asus A7V333) did not support the hard drive without the use of the free Ultra ATA/133 PC Card that came with the drive. I configured the BIOS boot order to go to SCSI. When I installed Windows XP Pro by booting from the CD, I pressed F6 to install 3rd party driver for disk. I got Windows XP running for months now on the old system.

My problem, I got the new barebones with Gigabyte 7NNXP motherboard...

I used to have problems even booting to windows, and I had problems with Windows recognizing the built-in LAN. After many hours of tinkering I got the LAN to work, and Windows to work. I disabled and changed some settings in the BIOS in order to get Windows to run. After getting things to run, I tried to reinstall Windows by 2 different ways.

• First, I tried cold boot by CD-ROM during boot phase. After it finished analyzing my computer, and asked me to select drive to install to, it only gave me options of reformatting the drive to NTFS. And it stated the drive has an unknown partition.
• At my second attempt, I tried to do fresh reinstall of Windows XP Pro from Windows XP Pro I already have set up. I instructed it to download all the updates, after it does so; it reboots then goes through the setup process of loading files to begin the install. At some point, a blue screen of death comes up telling me a halt in operation is probably caused by a device driver, anti-virus software, or defrag tool. And I have no other option but to press reboot button on the case.

Could I please have some help on what to do? How do I get around this blue screen and continue installation without reformatting. I do not wish to reformat, because I have very important files I wish to keep.

If no one has advice or guidance on how to solve the matter, how do I remove the boot selection screen of it automatically picking Windows Setup each time I reboot?

 

[joe2tiger]

bump

*bump*

Well then, if no one knows a solution. Is there a way to get rid of that boot load screen and undo windows setup?

 

[clintfan]

You might get better results if you repost this over on the Operating Systems- Windows XP forum.

"Unknown" partition? I'm surprised XP couldn't identify the type. I agree you should not need to reformat. You should be able to convert.

Here is MS article 307881 which describes some conversions, or you can search their Support KB for more, there is all sorts of info (I simply searched for "FAT32" under "Windows XP" product). In this one MS says "...It is recommended that you use NTFS with Windows XP because of its advanced performance, security, and reliability features..." but it does not say it is required.

If you have any way to back up your files before trying a conversion, I would do that. Or maybe, use Partition Magic to shrink your existing partition (takes some time), create another partition after that, copy all your data files to that, then run the NTFS conversion against your old partition. Some people like GHOST, but I'm not sure what its limitations are if you plan to change file-system types in between.

Maybe there is another way to reinstall Windows XP: what happens if you boot Windows as you have it, and stick the CD in while Windows is running. Does it launch a setup app that gives you some update options? Try it.

I think 98 also has a FAT16-to-FAT32 conversion function that you can run against your disk. Not sure that would buy you anything with XP, though. I think other utilites are available to do this too. Don't do this either until you've figured out all your options.

But don't reformat except as a last resort. I hear NTFS will, however, give you better results.

-clintfan

 

[clintfan]

One other thing. Make sure you apply the Big Drive Enabler patch from Maxtor, for that 200GB drive.

-clintfan

 

[Guest]

Did you just take this hard drive out of your old machine and hook it up to this new motherboard?

 

[joe2tiger]

my current partition is already NTFS. I also tried installing from Windows itself, it works, and updates alright, but after it reboots and goes to blue setup screen it goes to error message.

Speedo, yes I just transplanted the hard drive from old into new. Perhaps I that complicates things.

On the old system it was going through the ATA133 PCI card to connect to Asus mobo, now it connects directly to Gigabyte mobo.

 

[Guest]

Well if you don't have any issues with it I would do a clean install of the OS. But I would recommend writing zeros to the drive first.