New System/Old HD - Problems Booting Up

[ChrisfromFlorid]

I've spent the last two days reading posts, searching the internet, and trying to make recommended changes for this common problem, but I've had no luck so far. Please lend me some advice.

Problem: I just put together a new system (MSI K8N Neo4-F MB/Athlon 64 3200+ Processor) and I'm having problems with booting up.

Specifically, I'm getting hung up at the "Verifying DMI Pool Data" phase. A summary of things I tried is listed below:

Unplug all unnecessary peripherals: Only the hard drive and video card plugged in.

Updated BIOS

Unplugged/Reconnected ATA 100 cable from HD to MB

Replaced ATA 100 cable

Swapped locations of cable to MB (IDE 1 --> IDE 2)

Made a boot disk. After using the boot disk, I'm able to get past the "Veryifying DMI Pool Data", but then I'm just left at the A: prompt. I tried switching to C: and D:, but that did not work.

Extra info: Within the BIOS and during bootup, my HD (Western Digital, 80 GB) is recognized. Using auto-detect in the BIOS, the MB also knew when I switched from IDE 1 to IDE 2.

So, my hard drive appears to be detected properly, I just can't successfully boot up. Any advice? Thanks in advance!

Chris

[david eaton]

what OS is installed on the hard drive? If there is nothing on the drive, then stopping at the veryifing DMI Pool Data is all you will get.

[ChrisfromFlorid]

Windows XP is installed on the hard drive. The drive I'm trying to put in the new system was the master drive in my old one.

[jlreich]

You need to either do a fresh install of windows, or do a repair install per this link if you have a windows install disk and not a restore disk. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

Windows does not like to wake up in a new system. It doesn't know what to do with all that new hardware. :eek: Most of the time it will not even boot. Or sometimes it will start to boot than crash at the windows logo screen, restart the system, and do it all over again in a loop.

A fresh install is best but a repair install will usually work. Doing a repair install will require you to re-activate windows.

If you have important data on the drive and want/need to do a fresh install, you can install windows to another hard drive, then hook up the old one as a slave and recover your data. Or hook it back up to the old computer, if it is still around and functioning, save you data to CD/DVD's, then transfer the data to your new installation.

If you want to do a repair install, do head the warnings in the link and backup your important data. There is always a chance of data corruption with procedures like this.