Viewing Thread:
"A (Big) Problem"

Right-o.

Just finished (yesterday) my most recent build.

Specs:

3.2Ghz P4
ABIT IC7-G
2x 256MB RAM (1x 2700; 1x 3200)
1x 512MB RAM (2700)
Connect 3D ATi Radeon 9600XT
Creative Live! 5.1
Hitachi Deskstar 120GB HDD (IDE)
SAMSUNG CD-RW (IDE)
SONY CD-R / DVD (IDE)

Cooling: 2x Case Fan (1x Exhaust, 1x Intake); 1x CoolerMaster Aero4 Lite

And I boot up, having cleared the CMOS, and boot up via the Windows XP (SP1) CD.

Then, I formated the HDD, and re-installed Windows XP - a completely clean install.

Now, after the restart in the middle of the Windows XP install, the BIOS hangs at "Verifying DMI Pool Data..........". About 7 minutes later, the screen goes blank. A couple after that, a white "loading bar" appears, and takes aaaaggggeeeessss.

About 20 minutes later it gets into the second half of the install, and that all goes swimmingly.

It finishes and restarts again. Same problem.

Now, it's all fine once it loads into Windows, but man, 20 minutes? Surely something is wrong?

Is it the HDD?

Mind, BootVis etc wouldn't be any help, seeing as it happened from a clean install....

Aye, I tried that - but it turned out it really was the HDD.

And I know that's much, much too much for an IDE HDD, especially a 40GB one, but I needed it urgently for work - so no chance of waiting and buying a decent one.

But anyway, Christmas is coming - along with two S-ATA Segate 700.7 200GB hard drives (RAID 0).

Mmmm... 440GB space... Mmmm...

Coin wrote:
> Hmm, I'll give it a go when I can.

Did you sort it? Something else has sprung to mind. If you've cleared the bios, the factory defaults will have restored.

Now, I have an asus a8v-deluxe, and there are settings there I don't need, Raid devices etc.

I was hitting 15 minutes to boot when there were in place. Disabling them boots in next to no time.

40GB for £50?!?!?! You could have had 120GB for that money!

KK - bought a new, 40GB HDD from PC World on Saturday for £50.

And it works.

Silly Hitachi Desktar going all 'tarded on me.

Hmm, I'll give it a go when I can.

Sounds like a processor overheating to me.
Clean Hs / fan, cpu. Reapply thermal paste. Start again.

Sorry, drunk.

Hmm...

Would a new HDD fix it?

Can't think of anything else I haven't tried.

Cheers for the help though!

Try installing a different OS, and then putting XP over the top.

Yeeep.

As you can see, I'm amazing at building a PC...

Or not.

Bloody hell man, that is that the same system thats been giving you headaches for the last month???