Just installed GeForce 6100 / Nvidia 430 / AMD Athlon 64 X2 Duo core / 1GB DMM2 into my huge tower. System boots to bios & settings, but will not proceed to XP start (even in SAFE). Won't boot to CD drive with new drivers set.

 

 

 

Really newed to get the ol' PC up and running ASAP.

 

 

 

HELP!!! :wall:

Most of the time you can not just boot from your old windows Xp install with completely different hardware.

 

 

 

You probably will need to reinstall windows XP. If you need stuff off of that hard drive you will need to plug it into another computer as a slave and get everything onto a dvd/cd/flash drive or whatever to transfer to your new computer.

If you change a lot of hardware then XP will refuse to boot, as stated in the previous post. The reason is that the XP operating system itself is the same on all PCs, what is different is a layer between windows and the hardware called the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer).

 

 

 

The HAL is built when you install windows, but you can rebuild in on a current system by doing a windows repair using the following method:

 

 

 

1. Boot off your original XP Install CD.

 

2. When it asks Press F6 to use the Recovery console, don't press F6, just continue with the installation.

 

3. The installer will search for previous operating systems, when it finds your current installed XP, there will be an option to Repair that by Pressing F6, this time press F6.

 

4. Follow the repair through to the end, this should rebuild the HAL binding it to your current hardware, keeping all your settings etc.

 

 

 

One thing to note about the above, you will have to re-apply the Microsoft updates for things to work correctly, especially if the install CD you have is pre SP2. One of the problems you may find is when you try to view the properties for My Computer, you get a DLL error. Applying all the service patches will solve this.

 

 

 

Phew, I hope that was helpful.

 

 

 

Clare.

 

 

 

Addition: One thing you may find after doing all this is that windows detects a major hardware change and you will need to activate it again. If the online activation method fails, call them using the toll free number on the activation screen, tell them you have just upgraded your system and they will give you the correct activation code.

Yeah, I figured I'd have to repair the thing. #-o

 

 

 

Thanks for the detailed / quick response.