need help

[mebens]

I just gots me a "new to me" cpu and mobo from a friendly forum member, but i'm having a little bit of a problem with the install. My old cpu and mobo was an e6400 and a gigabyte ga-965p-ds3. New one is an e7200 and an evga 750i sli ftw. Other hardware consists of a Zotac 8800gt, BFG 650w psu, 2x1gb ddr2-800 corsair xms2, 1 ata and 2 sata hard drives, and an old samsung dvd drive. My problem is that it just flat won't boot. I can't get it to boot from the hard drive or the os disk. If i try to boot from hard drive it blue screens everytime shortly after the windows loading screen pops up. If I try use the os disk to reinstall windows, it simply freezes before i get to even put in a product code, that is if it loads the disk at all. When i try to repair my install using the os disk, it doesn't recognize that there is a current install of vista on any hard drive. All hardware was working fine as of yesterday before mobo and cpu replacement. It seems to post just fine and recognizes all of my drives and memory then. idk what to do. I need help please...

[Major_A]

Unplug all drives that don't have your OS on it. If that doesn't work you'll probably have to reinstall Windows. You can't go from one chipset (Intel) to another (nVidia) and have Windows work.

[skier]

i'd move your files around and try to install to a different drive it seems like it doesnt like the drive your installing to(if it doesnt see the original install)

[mebens]

ive tried booting with just the OS drive installed. I've tried to install windows to one of the other drives that has just been storage, but it still blue screens or freezes up. I double checked all memory timings and voltages. I'm going to download ubuntu and see if I can boot it from the optical drive.

[Major_A]

Dumb question, before you started doing any of this did you reset the CMOS?

[mebens]

yes sir I did. It won't boot or install ubuntu either. Memtest ran with no errors. idk what the deal is...

[skier]

i meant try to run the LiveCD so it will run off the CD not install to a Hard drive, you could remove all HDDs and it should still boot to the unix OS it just takes a min. and you have check a few options like keyboard/country/lang etc.

you applied the thermal paste i included(or SOME kind of thermal paste) to the bottom of the cooler/top of the CPU right? check the BIOS and what does it say for temps in the 'Hardware Monitoring' section

[mebens]

i am trying to run ubuntu from the disk and not the hard drive. i just downloaded the "ultimate boot disk" and i'm gonna see what i can get done with that. And yes, I did use the included thermal paste. Temps are 33c for cpu and 31c for board.

[Major_A]

Try a new SATA cable. Sounds like it might be a problem with the ROM. If a LiveCD isn't booting at all then I'd start with your optical drive.

[mebens]

i've tried several different sata cables but to no avail. What do you suggest I do with the rom Major_A? Before replacing it, that is. I tried to boot Linux with the "ultimate boot cd" but i got an error message that read, "kernal panic: vfs: unable to mount root fs on 01:00" and i don't quite know how to interpret that.

[skier]

so what happened when you ran the liveCD? you never said..

[mebens]

what do you mean by "livecd"? I took it to mean any cd that could be used to boot an os.

[Major_A]

See if your drive will boot up a LiveCD Linux distro. If it does then the problem is elsewhere.
http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download

[mebens]

See if your drive will boot up a LiveCD Linux distro. If it does then the problem is elsewhere.

yeah, that's what i figured y'all meant when you said livecd. Thats the exact version of ubuntu i've been trying to boot with. I guess tomorrow that i'll try interchanging cpu's and/or motherboards since that's the only thing I can think of that I haven't tried yet.

[skier]

hows it going?

[mebens]

Still not able to get this mobo to boot. Anybody have any new suggestions?

[skier]

so have you tried putting the E6400 in the 750i?

have you tried moving the RAM sticks around?(possibly a dead memory slot? change around RAM sticks as well) and how long did you run memtest, usually one would run it for at least 3 passes(i usually do a full pass and a half) though is sometimes the case, memtest doesn't always immediately start to throw out errors, can take hours to find a bad stick(last time i ran memtest a Corsair XMS2 stick threw out 50,000 errors in the first 25%)

can you take and post a picture or two of the inside of your computer? so we(i) can see if everything is plugged in that needs to be/nothings askew

[XstollieX]

Sounds like the system is posting right. I think a drive issue is to blame. When in the bios, does it recognize the disks properly? Which disk are you trying to install to? Have you tried different sata cables?

[mebens]

I found the problem. I had to use a different optical drive. It still took 4 tries to get Windows installed...but it's installed. Idk why the drive didn't want to work with the mobo, but I guess that just happens sometimes... Thanks to everybody for your help. I really appreciate it.

[skier]

I found the problem. I had to use a different optical drive. It still took 4 tries to get Windows installed...but it's installed. Idk why the drive didn't want to work with the mobo, but I guess that just happens sometimes... Thanks to everybody for your help. I really appreciate it.

i'm just glad to hear it worked out