Unless you really like messing with it, tell him to sell the parts, and spend 400 bucks on a new system from techbargains.com.
I have seen DECENT core2duo dell systems with large screen LCD monitors for around 400 bucks, preloaded with vista.
It doesn’t make sense to put a dime into machines anymore.
^Thanks for your input.
Indeed, for him if it’s >$400, he prefers to just dump the old system and buy a new one.
However, we made it to around $400 with $50 rebates. Apparently, he’s still into building (re-building) this custom machine.
Oh another funny thing, he got this setup for free as a gift from his brother. Maybe this is why he’s OK with buying new parts…
UPDATE:
Well, got all the parts yesterday. Thanks to newegg for blazing 2 days shipping.
Assembled everything and everything works wonderfully.
The only problem now: I can’t boot into Windows Vista.
It tries booting in for a bout 5 seconds then it automatically reboots itself. When I picked the option “not to reboot”, it shows inaccessible boot device error. When I tried to go into safe mode, it reboots during “BTKRNL.SYS” loading.
I tried fixing it by using Vista installation disk, however, it could not find the problem and told me to send the problem to Microsoft. Doh!
Next Monday I am going to try “Repair Install” option using Vista installation disk. The only problem is, if it’s already SP1, I need to create the slipstream disk…
Any insights? Could this simply caused by the radical hardware change?
Anytime you make a change like that you will need to re-install the operating system.
Processor/motherbord/stuff like that.
yup, windows gets confused when it’s running on different hardware than it was originally installed on (minus add on cards). I don’t think you can repair it either, have to start fresh
thanks guys!
My co-worker created a backup image of the drive using LiveCD…
Tomorrow I am going to try the “Repair Install” option first, if that doesn’t work…format we must. lol.
No. The OS will pick it up fine but the problem here is the boot drive has probably changed path. I haven’t used Vista but if its like XP/ect there is a file c:\boot.ini that specifies the boot path like:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
If he is now using the riser card chances are the mobo puts it in a different spot like disk(1) ect. Windows will go pop after the bootstrap because it can’t find the installation.
^very interesting.
The HDD which contains Vista is an IDE drive. It used to be connected on the older Mobo’s IDE connector. Now it is again connected on the new Mobo’s IDE connector.
BTW…I just figured out that Vista does not use Boot.ini, so, it seems like that’s not how Vista figured out the boot drive’s location.
I wasn’t aware of that either (cdvma’s most). Learn something new everyday. :tup:
however, like you said, it seems that vista is pickier than XP when it come to this. You’re probably better off starting fresh anyway. Nothing like a clean install on new hardware… it should run like a top
Update, probably last:
Finally decided to do fresh install after tinkering around with “Repair Install” option. I was in the middle of creating Vista Slipstream Installation DVD with SP1 when I realized that the version he has is in fact an upgrade version.
I ended up installing XP first then upgrade to Vista.