Computer Rebuild: HDDs Fighting

Dyrwen66

I'm a retard when it comes to rebuilding my computer, apparently. And this is a little more complex than a quick post in the computer build threads around the forum, I suspect.

So, I have an okay computer, but its 3-4 years old so I bought a few things to upgrade it easily. I got a CPU, Mobo and video card. All of them play nicely together, especially since I think even the video card is somehow based from the ASUS company. Anyway, I tried to put it all together, and after buying new RAM (Old ram was ddr, and my new MOBO only takes DDR2) and a new DVD/CD drive rewriter (since my old setup was a dvd/cd-rom drive and a cd-rw drive separately, and they were both IDE. Currently my mobo only has one blue IDE slot, which my older HDD is plugged into. My second HDD goes into the SATA, first slot, and my dvd drive goes in one of the other SATA slots.

The only things plugged into the MOBO are: Video card, two hard drives, dvd drive, and of course the cpu/heatsink and power supply, etc. I had Ubuntu on the old hard drive, and got it mostly replaced by trial and error with a Windows 7 disk. Unfortunately after the Windows 7 rebooted after its initial install, it wouldn't complete its setup, but instead blue screens quickly then reboots to die again after another BSOD. I can't even load the disk and get to a repair option. To make matters worse, I couldn't usually get the Windows 7 or new MOBO perhaps, to even recognize both my HDDs at the same time. I managed to unplug the IDE and leave in the SATA, to get the Win7 to see it and install to it. Since it was now corrupted weirdly by the Win7 installation, I tried only plugging in the IDE drive and threw a copy of Windows 2000 on it, which ran into an error as well. It seems like I'm maybe having trouble reformatting both drives and starting over, either because my new MOBO won't play nice with both HDDs or perhaps because I've now got two separate OSs on two different drives.

My problem remains: Troubleshooting the drives so they'll properly load isn't working as intended, it seems like, is there a process I skipped that would make the IDE & SATA drive setup work better? Seems like I'm missing a procedure to make this process simpler, since I've upgraded my computer before and it wasn't nearly this fucked up. Merci, H/A peoples.

Beazle

It sounds like you have RAM problems not HDD problems. Run memtest86 and see if your RAM passes. Bad RAM will casue all the problems you described.

eternalbl

Also, what's your power supply rated at? I've heard of weird things coming from components not getting enough power.

Dyrwen66

Hm, well this new RAM is brand new. I'll try removing a stick though, see if that does the trick. My power supply is maybe a year or two old, it's a 450w, if i recall. Should be giving out enough power, unless the requirements behind my new video card are ultra high, which may well be possible. I think it's a 4370 ati or something of that nature. The computer starts up fine though, which generally means the power supply isn't the issue.

Should have an empty hard drive to test out in a day or two, to see if I can run from that and blank the others.

eternalbl

Dyrwen66 wrote: »

Hm, well this new RAM is brand new. I'll try removing a stick though, see if that does the trick. My power supply is maybe a year or two old, it's a 450w, if i recall. Should be giving out enough power, unless the requirements behind my new video card are ultra high, which may well be possible. I think it's a 4370 ati or something of that nature. The computer starts up fine though, which generally means the power supply isn't the issue.

Should have an empty hard drive to test out in a day or two, to see if I can run from that and blank the others.

Generally, but just throwing it out as an outside possibility if the RAM is fine.

Iconoclysm

Check your motherboards bios setting for the hard drive config options. It'll offer the choice of booting your HDs in a specific order and offer compatability tweaks for running drives as AHCI or IDE drives, and maybe to run in either a 'compatible' mode or 'enhanced'.
Try switching between those options to see if that helps. Note: you'll definitely need to reinstall windows when changing from AHCI to IDE mode or vice versa.

You should also try disabling performance tweaks such as 'boost transactions' and any of the 'spread spectrum' options

Dyrwen66

I've tried moving out the RAM, leaving one in of both gigs, but it still BSOD's right as Windows 7 attempts to load after showing the "Windows is loading" swirling color logo thing. Sort of strange spot for it to happen.