Rebuilding after computer died

[amaunator]

Ok, my wife's computer died two days ago. It was an old SINXP motherboard. I have replaced it with a GA-EP4-UD3L with new processor, video card, etc. The trouble I'm having is getting Windows to load up. It gets through the BIOS screen and to the Windows screen to start in Safe Mode. When I tell it to start in Safe Mode, it just rebots and ends up back at the Safe Mode question screen. I suspect it is old drivers from the dead motherboard.

What should I do to get this to load up? I don't just want to lose her system setup as she really needs to keep her Outlook information.

Thanks in advance

 

[Lemon law]

Your best bet may lie in setting your CD drive as the first boot device in your bios, then loading your original windows install disk, and the first thing the computer will do after booting to the windows install disk is to inspect your configuration. And at that stage, it may reset the configurations to be compatible for your new board. Then it will go on to give you an option to exit, or reinstall windows, or repair the windows you have.

You could try exiting at that point and with luck windows will then start correctly. Failing that, I would try that same procedure one or two more times because the first try may not be enough.

But I recently had exactly your experience and thought that there would be no way to save my original configuration with a new mobo, and went directly to the install windows option. And to my pleasant surprise, I was offered a chance to save my original configuration. On the up side, after reinstalling windows, all my original desktop icons and other software were left in tact, and the downside was that all the windows updates were lost. You could try that also, but to be on the safe side and hedge your gamble, you could image your old HD to another storage volume so you have a copy in case it does not work.

And there are a number of yes no prompts, if you do try reinstalling windows, and it asks you permission to reformat the disk, and you say yes, you will lose everything on the disk in the resulting reformat.

And at the end of the day, you will still have to reactivate windows, if windows refuses, you may have to buy a new license. Especially if you can't come up with the original 20 COA letters.

 

[amaunator]

Here's the other wrinkle. The old drives are all IDE and so are the DVD/CD drives. The new motherboard only has one IDE connector whereas the old one had two. Would it be possible to connect her old primary drive and the DVD/CD as the slave on the same channel and try to fix it that way?

 

[Lemon law]

Not sure but others may know. But if nothing else, you may be able to borrow a cd rom drive that is usb connectible.

Or you could image your wife's hard disk to a new Sata drive costing $30.00 or so from outfits like newegg. Or retail from places like Fry's.

 

[RebateMonger]

Safest thing is to hook up the disk containing the files you want to another PC and copy them.

Your problem is that Windows can't see the boot hard drive in the new PC. It's using the disk controller driver from the old motherboard. The new MB has a different disk controller.

1) Hook up the CD drive and the system disk (from the old PC) to the IDE connector on the new motherboard.
2) Insert the Windows XP Install CD in the CD drive and boot to it.
3) Have Windows do a "Repair Install" of XP. This is NOT the same thing as the "R" option (Recovery Console) offered early in the process. You may have to feed XP a driver for the new disk controller (hiting the "F6" key and giving it a floppy disk with the needed driver), but I doubt it..
4) After XP is repaired, redo all Windows SPs and Updates.
5) At some point, put a PCI or PCI-E IDE disk controller in the PC, add the drivers to Windows, and hook up the rest of your IDE disks. Do NOT do this until Windows is fully re-installed.

If this completes properly, you should have the PC booting from XP, all of your data and applications and accounts will be intact, and you'll have all your IDE disks connected via both the built-in IDE controller and the new PCI/PCI-E disk controller.

 

[ScrapSilicon]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Safest thing is to hook up the disk containing the files you want to another PC and copy them.

do this first

Your problem is that Windows can't see the boot hard drive in the new PC. It's using the disk controller driver from the old motherboard. The new MB has a different disk controller.

Windows is the boot harddrive it can't get past the new hardware configuration it is attempting to recognize... so reboots galore.

1) Hook up the CD drive and the system disk (from the old PC) to the IDE connector on the new motherboard.

Being as all his drives are IDE there are jumpers to configure as most likely his OS boot drive is set as Master on (as originally installed in old comp) a separate IDE channel and the other drives as Master/Slave on their own as well. Set your OS drive on CS(CableSelect) on the new rig's only IDE with a known good optical drive set either same(CS) or Master at the very end of the cable ...the OS drive in the middle.... or you could try your OS drive on an SATA channel with one of these...

 

[Lemon law]

Rebate Monger and Scrap Silicon seem to have reading comprehension problems, our OP's new Mobo has one and only one IDE
connector. Giving the OP a choice of hooking to the the original HDD drive or the CD drive, one or the other but not both.

And to repair windows requires both work at the same time. Therein lies the catch 22.

Be real.

Bottom line fact, either the hard drive has to be imaged to a sata drive, or the cd drive will have to be switched to Sata or USB.

Other bottom line, new hardware will be required. Both to get windows working but also to have a working PC that has both a hard drive and a CD or DVD drive. Maybe cheapest solution is a $25.00 Sata dvd/rw drive. I bought a working one for that price shipped from new egg when my old DVD/rw crapped out. Six months later its still working fine thank you.

Or we could tell the OP to get another mobo with more than one IDE connector.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
Rebate Monger and Scrap Silicon seem to have reading comprehension problems, our OP's new Mobo has one and only one IDE connector.

Motherboards with a single IDE connector can handle TWO (that's 2) IDE drives. If he/she has an IDE cable with just one device connector, then another cable with two device connectors can be purchased at any computer shop for a couple of bucks. Be sure to get a 40-pin/80-wire cable. I don't think you can purchase pure 40-wire IDE cables anymore.

It sounds like the OP already understood this and was asking if both the hard disk and the CD drive can be connected to the same motherboard IDE connector. And the answer is "Yes".

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger Motherboards with a single IDE connector can handle TWO (that's 2) IDE drives. If he/she has an IDE cable with just one device connector, then another cable with two device connectors can be purchased at any computer shop for a couple of bucks. Be sure to get a 40-pin/80-wire cable. I don't think you can purchase pure 40-wire IDE cables anymore. It sounds like the OP already understood this and was asking if both the hard disk and the CD drive can be connected to the same motherboard IDE connector. And the answer is "Yes".

Agree! And, it is also possible to add another PATA controller as a PCI card. The optical PATA should be able to run as a slave to the HDD. That was once the norm about 25 years ago. Also, the optical drive can be put in an external case and connected USB provided your mobo can boot to a USB device.

 

[amaunator]

Thanks for all the help.

I ended up installing Windows on a new SATA drive by attaching the DVD/CD to the IDE connector. After that, I moved the IDE cable to the two old IDE drives and copied over what I needed. I was able to find the pst files for Outlook and the favorites for Explorer so all is good.

Only problem I now have, the only hard drive on the system now is the SATA, and for some reason, it is the F: drive. It's not a huge deal, but I had some minor problem already installing a HP printer driver because it was looking for C: drive.

 

[Skyzoomer]

Originally posted by: amaunator
Only problem I now have, the only hard drive on the system now is the SATA, and for some reason, it is the F: drive. It's not a huge deal, but I had some minor problem already installing a HP printer driver because it was looking for C: drive.

I would reinstall windows so it is the C: drive. A day's extra work now will probably save your wife years of fustration.

Sky

 

[earthman]

You could have saved alot of effort by doing a fresh install to a new hard drive, and copying over the pst file, and any other files. You're going to have to reinstall all your apps anyway. The repair option might work as well, but it's far from foolproof. Non-retail versions don't have a repair option.