[Paradigm81]

To all admin , and all possible responses , forgive me if this topic is posted elsewhere. If so please link me. Thanks in advance.

My problem is this:

I've recently decided to take on a major hardware upgrade project from my dinosaur Sony Vaio.

Not sure if this is important but i've switched from :
Sony\ABit board, 1.8 ghz intel P4 , ATI 9600xt (agp), Soundblaster Audigy, 512mb pc133

To:

ECS NForce4 A-939 motherboard, Athlon 64 3200+, Sapphire ATI x600xt (PCI -E), same soundcard.

Typical harddrive setup (Primary\Slave) with Win XP home(from Sony discs) on the Primary drive.

I actually began this process with this sites help previously. I happened to find a thread through google about using the Windows XP CD to repair the installation after major hardware changes. For that i must say, thank you that great guide.

Here are my outstanding circumstances:

As i said this machine began as a Sony Vaio which comes with its own set of Restore Discs which of course will completely wipe the hardrive without any other options, much like the Dell CD's will as i read someone complaining about ( and rightly so). Also, with the new motherboard\bios those restore discs will not work, of course.

So, i went out and purchased a copy of XP home upgrade to attempt this repair and activate it for my new hardware, hoping to have my settings and storage intact.

Well... It didnt even complete the setup process, as far as i can tell. I moved the harddrives over to the new machine after building, fired her up, and popped in the XP CD.

Btw, i already had a reboot cycle on the new machine before attempting to repair the OS. It booted up to the point of that screen "Windows did not start properly please choose an option .... safe mode..etc... (last known good configuration). You know the one. And no safe mode did not work, or any other option, even though it booted fine when put back into the Sony. It would just go into a reboot cycle up to Windows Logo or just before it.

Anyway, so i fired the new machine with the XP CD, and went through the steps as described in the previously mentioned walk-through to repair the install. It runs through the setup as described and copies all the files fine , and confirms the success at the end giving me the screen saying " ...... was successful , your system will now reboot. Windows setup will continue after restart" or something to that effect.

But when it reboots, its the same thing. It boots all the way to logo, runs the normal time it would take to load, and right when it would normally blink to the login screen it reboots , again and again.

I tried booting from the CD a second time, and no setup continued. I'm not sure if it was supposed to, honestly. I also tried safe mode and right when safe mode is nearly loaded (the screen is up with the safe mode banners in the corners of the screen etc.) i get a pop-up that says "Windows XP setup cannot run in Safemode. Setup will now restart" {"OK" button only} I hit ok and the reboot cycle restarts.

Any troubleshooting ideas? Thanks in advance.

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update: Well, i was considering trying a clean install as I couldnt think of what else to do. When i turned the machine back on to boot into the xp CD again, I no longer had power or recognition of my usb keyboard\mouse in order to "press any key to boot from cd..."

Now I'm really confused. I guess its a hardware problem afterall, namely the motherboard. Though i really have no idea.

I'm sorry if this thread is in the wrong section.

[Paradigm81]

update: Well, i was considering trying a clean install as I couldnt think of what else to do. When i turned the machine back on to boot into the xp CD again, I no longer had power or recognition of my usb keyboard\mouse in order to "press any key to boot from cd..."

Now I'm really confused. I guess its a hardware problem afterall, namely the motherboard. Though i really have no idea.

I'm sorry if this thread is in the wrong section.

[Paradigm81]

Please help.

[Paradigm81]

Update :
Well, it seems i have usb again, i have no idea what the problem was last night.

As an experiment, i dug up an old 6gig HDD to try a fresh install of 2000 server onto, within the new system. Everyting went smooth, though i have no support for my PCI-E card as of yet, it just comes up in control panel as "generic-vga" "driver unknown" "location unknown".

That's not really important, however, i just wanted to see if infact i could install something , anything to rule out hardware problems like a faulty motherboard or whatever it may be thats preventing the repair of Windows XP to complete.

So, if that works, why on earth can i not complete the repair\setup of XP on the new machine?

This, being my first complete build is quickly becoming my last.

[gerryf]

welcome to windows activation and windows file protection ...

You cannot always use system repair to facilitate a major hardware change, especially when it is such a major change, and it seems to be increasingly more difficult with sp2.

First, this is the best solution I have ever seen for your situation...give it a read and see if it follows with what you did

http://www.michaelst.../moving_xp.html

[Paradigm81]

Thank you so much for the reply.

It seems there were other precautions I needed to take care of before attempting this. It seems, from the link, that the culprit would be that i attempted to boot into the OEM installation on the new computer, before purchasing the XP CD to attempt the repair.

I will continue to browse the the site you linked to see what other options are available at this stage.

Thanks again.

[gerryf]

ahhh, yes, I see what you're saying...that would cause some problems since windows is waking up in a different place (not unlike you or I going out to the bar, having way too much to drink, and then waking up somewhere with a stranger).

Windows file protection, then, is really bilouxing things up, because it will not let you change hardware easily...

I miss windows 9x....in a similar situation, you could simply delete a registry key and windows would re-detect hardware.

In windows xp, the registry hive setup is not nearly so flexible.

So, you obviously have a second computer.....also windows XP?

Here's where I am going, and this is kind of desperate--

there is a system migration tool called sysprep, which you can use to remove some hardware info from an installation.

Using sysprep and the /nosidgen and /pnp switches, will result in windows renumerating your hardware, so it will essentially reload with new hardware detection, and maintain the SID (an alphanumeric string that is unique to each machine).

This may maintain your windows installation without necessitating reinstalling and reactivating. I say MAY as in BIG MAY. It is not likely to work, but if I was just farting around, I might give it a whirl

I think I would be more inclined to start fresh with a new installation regardless, just because in the long run you will be less likely to have to worry about odd system instability

[Paradigm81]

I'm not sure what you're suggesting regarding sysprep, as it (and most command line) is unfamiliar to me.

Even so, i've given in and preparing for a fresh install. At this point, losing my settings etc, is better than having a $500 paperweight sitting in my room

Thanks again for your help, it's most appreciated

[gerryf]

It was just a thought, anyway...not sure it would work, though it theoretically might....