[hugo_zair]

thanks Simpswr for you continued interest!

All of my partition information was being read directly from the early stages of the win xp install process.

Just spent another full day on this after giving up yesterday on the the original harddrive. I treated the machine to a new SATA 160Gb drive and had another pile of unexpainable problem when xp install process kept (in several diffent ways) saying it failed to format the new 20Gb partition I'd created on it. But 4th time around format finished ok and instalationl began - and finished succesfully...with the initial display resolution at 640x480, 4 bit depth I immediately installed the Matrox drivers for the Millenium G450 graphics card. This called for a re-boot. On rebooting the original problem had returned.

ie Window spalsh screen appears for a few seconds, then goes black for a while, then system reboots .Then "widows failed to load successfully" message/options. Only safe mode works.

So I pulled out every card in the machine except graphics. Exactly the same. So I disabled the graphics card - and it was ok! I've tried 5 different versions of the Matrox drivers including the latest from a few weeks ago and the last certified driver dated 29th July 2006...but to no avail. With the Microsoft drivers (dated 2001) it always works, but with Matrox it doesn't.

This graphics card dates back to about 2001 and has been in use on this video editing pc ever since..including thru a complete rebuild last year when I changed to the Winfast K8S 755a, AMD motherboard with windows XP home SP1a. It doesn't connect to the internet much so hadn't had many updates until I applied the SP2 last week. maybe the only solution is to get another graphics card?

[Old Rich]

A different Video Card would at least tell you that is the problem . . that's apretty old card and drivers don't seem to be readily available.

I worry about the errors formating the new drive . . that can be an indicator of something weak on the board . . usually memory. What memory does it have in there now?

[hugo_zair]

hmmm...don't tell me there could be something else wrong! It has been completely stable running Premier 6.5 since last year. Ther's 1Gb buffalo ram in there bought togetherlast year.

On the formatting front...1st time I was so pleased that at last I got a good slipstream disc (aftyer changing to a different make of media) when I got to "format" I pressed go and went up the shop. Quarter of an hour later when I returned it was telling me windows was unable to format the selected drive..it may be damaged etc.. Second time, format completed and hung at 100%. It was actually the third time that it went through ok...

I found an equally old all-in-wonder 32mb card and it works ok. The sp2 microsoft drivers even allow working at 1024x768, 32bit..

And the G450 millenium...as far as I can see is still available. On Misco for example at around £60. And Matrox published new drivers a couple of months ago.
I have to admit this amazed me and was why I got the first 3 drivers I tried off driverguide..

Ah well......................................maybe I'll try Matrox support :-) Roger

[Old Rich]

It was actually the third time that it went through ok...

That's worrisome, but if it is running ok now, that's what is important . . what is Premier 6.5? ?

[hugo_zair]

ASdobe Premiere 6.5 is resource eating video edit program. This machine was a dedicated twin monitor DV video edit suite ...but things have gone a bit quiet (hobby wise) on that front and ive got into location audio recording with a new laptop and a nice external hardware audio interface. I decided to a bring the machine up to date last week with the intention of loading the audio editing software - and that's when the trouble started.

I will miss the twin monitors that were so good with Premieres floating toolboxes all over the place..Maybe I'll have to save some pennies for a nice new widescreen tft........

I guess this thread is about done. No one else has chipped in about the Matrox drivers/sp2 clash so I thank you for your help. If there is a resolution I'll post the result for info..

Thanks.. Roger (I'll keep my fingers crossed about the possible memory issue:-)