Hi. This is the first time I have built a system on my own. Here’s the specs:

- Thermaltake Tsunami Dream Black Aluminium w/Window
- Q-TEC Dual Fan 400W
- Gigabyte GA-K8NS Ultra-939 (nForce3 Ultra)
- AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+ (Manchester Core)
- Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT 128MB (AGP)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 200GB S-ATA 8MB Cache 7200RPM
- X2 OCZ Premier 512MB DDR400 PC3200 CL 2.5-3-3-7 w/Heatspreader (Dual Channel)
- SilenX SX-120C (120mm Copper .:. Arctic Silver 5 Thermalpaste)
- Plextor PX-230A 52x32x52x CD-RW (Black)
- Plextor PX-755A 16x16 DVD±RW (Black)

Now it picks up my SATA HDD, which is already loaded with Windows XP and all my programs. I left the HDD for about 3 months as my PC died and bought a laptop until recently I built a new PC from scratch.

Anyway it picks it up but when it tries to boot windows from the HDD, it refreshes the screen (or the screen goes black then comes back on. You know how it is) and then it used to (in my old pc) show the Windows XP splash screen with loading bar but instead it quickly flashes a blue screen (BSOD) then restarts the machine.
What do you think the problem is? Do I have to format the whole HDD for it to work because it’s a brand new never before used system? Is there a hardware fault?

Appreciate the help. I’ve just been up till 5am trying to do this, I am very tired. Last time I build a PC

this problem is due to the raid controller or due to the nV chipset

I have had such a thing, too when I tried to connect one HHD to another raid controller
it seems that its not possible to change the driver outside windows without deeper knowledge
when I changed my setup last time I did use the clone HDD feature of Acronis True Image to work this around ... I was able to boot windows but its not 100% operational - means: with my original raid system and the new HDDs connected they all appeared to be the same (as they are ) but since I have cloned the OS HDTune does read out different things for the HDDs
I am going to reinstall soon and it will get fixed hopefully

the 2nd thing is the nForce driver ... nForce was the first shipset that really does need a driver to work properly and thats the bad part - its like Win9x time where new mobo did mean to reinstall windows

there is pretty much nothing you can do which prevents you from reinstalling windows :o

ur windows is configurated with your old Sys setup?
that´s not possible in most times to use with new hardware...even XP got this probs, not only 9x
what if u try to boot in "safe" mode?

right, NForce(4) needs 2 driver for sata during WinXP Install to work 100%, but that´s "ok"


why don´t u want to built your own PC again?
after the first, ur second is built much better and faster (learning by doing)
and if u can do it often enough, it will be easier and easier

Have u set the Sata drive as first boot disk in the bios?.

Windows just doesn't have the drivers for the new HD controller, so it can't mount its own partition. All I had to do was put in XP boot disc, go through the options until I came to a repair option.
Not everything is functional (windows media player dont even load) but im just backing up the stuff I have here then going format it.

Thanks for the help tho guys :beer: