[kennedyg]

So, my hard drive failed. Got it replaced with a totally new one on warranty.

I popped it in, hooked it up and began a fresh install of XP Pro.

The install appears to have gone just fine... except when I got to restarting the computer.

When I start it everything seems normal until the moment the splash page disappears. At which point nothing happens. Just a black screen. No mouse icon. No BSOD. No pressing of any buttons (except for the power switch - which has the expected result of powering down) does anything.

I am guessing that this is a matter of me not installing the appropriate drivers for... well, probably a graphics card, but who knows what else. This is SO not my area of computer expertise.

Anyhow, drivers or not, I really don't know where to start. I did not get a disc of drivers from the store that sold me the comp, so I don't even have a simple answer to testing that theory.

[jrbuergel]

More specific information about your computer is needed, ( the brand, CPU, RAM, is it a IDE or a SATA type hard drive ? and video card type ) Are you connecting the monitor by analog VGA or by the digital, DVI type ? XP will need SATA drivers installed during the setup.

[kennedyg]

Okay...

Motherboard: Asus P5KPL-CM

Processor: Intel Core2Duo e7400 2.8Ghz

RAM: Kingston DDR2-800 PC2-6400 2GB

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 500GB SATA2 7200.11 32MB

Video Card: EVGA eGeForce 9400GT 512MB DDR2

VGA Monitor

[jrbuergel]

You can try to boot to the "Advanced Options Menu" which has the Safe Mode and that one called; "Last Known Good Configuration", which both options you should attempt. The main issue with XP and SATA hard drives is the drivers are not included on the XP CD, so it is needed to either use that F6 key install from floppy option, or slip stream them into a new disk created with your XP CD. The options for SATA drives are in the BIOS, so you can just change those settings from AHCI to compatible IDE.

[kennedyg]

That seems a bit over my head.

I took a quick peek to see if it seemed easily worked out, and quickly realised I'd be making guesses... which I'm a bit hesitant about doing blindly.

Any further direction? Or should I just tweak one option at a time and then un-tweak it when it doesn't work? ...Keeping an eye out for things that sound familiar from your last post, of course.

And thanks! I feel like I'm getting somewhere - which is better than sitting staring at my tower wishing it to work.

[RobOman]

If the problem is the video card try the safe mode boot f8 at start up. If you don't have the sata drivers and sometimes they are hard to find get a old ide set it up you should still have one ide port that your cdrom is plugged into set up windows xp you don't even need all the drivers then use a seagate or western digital data life guard utility you can down load them from seagate.com or western digitals web site one of the options are to set up the new hard drive as a boot device that will copy all the old drive including the winxp onto your sata. Windows can see the sata drive once windows is running. Kind of a dumb way to setup a drive but is the only way I have found that has been working for me. If the video is still a problem on Ide drive use an older card till you update to service pack 3 then download and install drivers for card then put in the new video card power off of course. good luck.

[kennedyg]

@RobOman

That is a solution I absolutely CAN attempt on my own.
I'll give it a go next time I have the time... Friday.

Thanks.

[jrbuergel]

Have you done a re-boot attempt into the safe mode with the F8 or which key is correct for your system yet ? You just keep hitting your F8 key during the early boot process, which then should show that "Advanced Options Menu" to select the safe mode. Also if you have your motherboard manual, or access to it online at the Asus website, then look for the SATA drive options available. If this is a home built computer, are you sure all hardware is in fact connected and installed correctly ? Or try one more fresh re-install of your XP with no external items plugged in, and maybe try a different SATA port on the motherboard too.

[kennedyg]

Originally Posted by RobOman

If you don't have the sata drivers and sometimes they are hard to find get a old ide set it up you should still have one ide port that your cdrom is plugged into set up windows xp you don't even need all the drivers then use a seagate or western digital data life guard utility you can down load them from seagate.com or western digitals web site one of the options are to set up the new hard drive as a boot device that will copy all the old drive including the winxp onto your sata. Windows can see the sata drive once windows is running.

That sounded like such an elegant solution. Unfortunately the computer isn't recognizing the IDE drive as a boot drive. So this seems to a non-starter... if you'll pardon the pun.

[kennedyg]

Well, no real luck on any of this, but a friend gave some good advice that worked temporarily... I'm going to redirect my query and post a separate thread.

Thanks everyone for your help, despite the dead ends.