freeze

[TJ]

After replacing a motherboard, my friend's PC freezes up
after it's start. I formatted it's HDD and installed WinXP
Pro from scratch. When I tried to install the OS I run
into a stop error: unmountable_boot_volume. I found the
solution under Q297185. The problem was: the BIOS settings
were configured to force the faster UDMA modes. And I had
to disable UDMA mode for the HDD and the installation went
thru. After the installation I can log into the windows,
but what ever I try to do it freezes on me, no pattern,
when I go to start/programs or open control panel or close
start up programs at the system tray... I even cannot
check the event log to see what is causing the problem,
halfway to that it freezes. Here're some system info that
might helpfull to you.

Motherboard: DFI CA64-TC
CPU: Intel Celeron 700Mhz
HDD: Samsung 4.3GB / Western Digital 6.4GB
CYL 13328, 15 heads, 63spt ( I installed XP Pro on
both of them, the same result)
RAM: 2x 64MB SDRAM PentiumII PC-100
Video: VGA Cirrus Logic (it's an old video card, we have 2
of them, the same result)

Please help me to help my friend...

 

[TJ]

thank you Peter,
HOw would I know that I'm using a 40pin 80 conductor
shielded IDE cable?

-----Original Message-----
Hi,

First, use the larger drive to be the master drive and

the small drive as slave. (In fact, 6.4 Gig is not good
enough to run XP) Make sure you set the jumpers correctly.

Make sure to use a 40 Pin 80 conductor shielded IDE cable

otherwise you can not use the UDMA mode and thus reduce
the speed of the Hdds dramatically. Also, if you use the
40 Pin 80 conductor shielded cable, you can set both the
Hdds to cable select.

Boot into BIOS and load default setup. Set the correct

date and time and disable the Virus protection in BIOS.

Set the Boot sequence that the CD-rom is the first boot

device, enable the UDMA mode for the primary and secondary
IDE channels ,then save and exit BIOS setup.

Boot from the XP CD, select to delete all the paritions

in the master drive and then clean install XP Pro again.

After XP Pro installed successfully, install all the

chipset drivers and mini port AGP drivers on the CD that
came with the mobo. Enable the XP Firewall feature and
install antiVirus softwares then go on-line to update all
the critical patches and SP1(if not included in the XP Pro
CD)

BTW, 128MB of ram is the mininum requirement for XP, I

would suggest to use at least 256MB of ram.

Also, if you cannot get the XP drivers for the vedio

card, you better buy a new one that is XP compatible.

I would also suggest you to buy a 60 Gig WD Hdd with 8 MB

Cache (it is cheap today, less than $90) and use the 6.4
Gig as slave.

 

[pyben]

shielded IDE cables are diferent than normal IDE cables
in the wires, normal cables are flat, and shilded IDE
cables are rounded, kind of like coaxial cables. you can
look for them on the web