WXP home wont boot with new Motherboard

[Beggarall]

Hi!
Can anyone help. Replaced grahics card and had to replace Motherboard because the old one would not support AGP8. On start up we arrive at a screen which says "We are sorry for any inconvenience.....but Windows did not start properly....which may be due to new hardware etc" and options which include safe mode and last known good ...... we try any of them but after a minute or two a blue screen flashes for a nano-second and then goes back to the start-up sequence in a never ending loop. Tried putting in the Windows CD but the process arrests at the "looking at hardware configuration" page and locks up. Motherboard MSI 845GM with FX5900XT graphics card and "old" P4 2 GHz processor which all tested compatible in the shop. BIOS "sees" the HD and CD. Any thoughts?

[SuperSparks]

WinXP does not take kindly to major hardware changes. You will need to do an over-the-top install so that Windows can write a new hardware Abstraction Layer. Boot up with the XP CD in the drive and let Setup run. Go past the "C" and "R" repair options by presssing Enter just as if you're doing a clean install and you'll eventually get an option to "Repair an existing installation". That's the one you want. If it asks about formatting you've gone wrong, so start over.

You'll get to keep your existing apps & settings, but you need to re-install SP1, Windows Updates & any unsigned drivers afterwards. NOTE: Be aware that you'll lose any protection from Blaster / Sasser type worms. Don't go online without a firewall, whether the built in Windows one or 3rd party.

How to perform a re-install of WinXP

Repair XP

[Train]

It ain't the HAl that causes the problems, it the fact that you have the wrong mobo drivers that is causing all the fits. Same old problem, different OS. Just do a repair as SS stated.

[Beggarall]

Thankyou for the replies. When I put the CD in a message appears that says (something like) "Windows is testing your hardware configuration" and then nothing happens. I have left it for 30 mins or so - is that long enough? Will try again and post back.

[MaFia JaK]

Go HERE and download the tool. Have 6 blank floppies ready. This will put the necessary files needed to start windows xp installation onto floppies. Put Disk 1 in your drive and restart and follow the instructions.

[DrMDJ]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but the XP (NT) "H.A.L" and it's relationship to hardware changes comes up a lot. So it may be worthwhile to say a few things about it/this...

The Hardware Abstraction Layer is really a "concept", a way hardware is dealt with. And the HAL.DLL file is the central file related to the implementation of the concept. Contrary to what seems to be thought though, only a very small number of hardware related changes effect what HAL.DLL is used or whether it needs to be changed/updated. There are really only like six HAL.DLL variations (eight if ya include a couple more obscure vendor specific variants), and of these it's fair to say that only a couple would pertain to most people's setups and/or the kind of changes people typically are gonna make. From the standpoint of what HAL.DLL is used it pretty much boils down to 1) whether the motherboard (bios) is ACPI compliant or not, 2) whether the motherboard supports a single or multiple processors, and 3) whether single or multiple processors are in use. So only changes that effect (change) these things would necessitate a change in the HAL.DLL. And it probably is worth noting that the HAL.DLL isn't a "composite" file such as is the case, say, with the VMM32.VXD under Win9x/ME. So it isn't something that gets built/rebuilt. The appropriate HAL.DLL is put in place by simply extracting the appropriate version (one of the six or eight available) from the XP cabs and renaming the file HAL.DLL. This can be don through setup, device manager, or ya can even to it manually.

So changing a motherboard could impact what HAL.DLL (variant) is needed. But really ONLY if the change impacted ACPI compliance or use, or effected uni/multi processor support or use. And probably very few motherboard swaps today impact these things. So in most cases it is typically not the case that the hardware changes people make necessitate a new HAL.DLL.

The primary concern/problem in moving XP between motherboards is when the chipset and fundimental motherboard components and features change significantly enough. If this happens then there can be problems because of drivers, related support files, and configuration issues/settings previously in place. The hardware-OS interactions are much more complex, precise and stewarded to a much greater extent with XP (vs say Win9x). So if XP detects what it considers a significant hardware change it will complain or prevent booting. And in many cases even if it "could" handle the hardware change, it won't (for safety/security). In these cases correcting the situation may entail simply supplying some new drivers/files to be loaded. Or, significant changes/re-configuration may be required such that XP will require a re/over/repair-install to make sure all the ducks are in a row.

A motherboard change may or may not be significant enough to cause issues that prevent XP from booting, etc. For a motherboard change to be a real issue requires that the change impact key, core level components/features of the motherboard. By default the act of swapping a mb is not necessarily a problem. If (as mentioned above) the swap impacts ACPI or uni/multi processor support then the change is significant. If the chipset changes it may or may not be significant. Going from say a Via KT133A to a via KT400A chipset would not be significant. Going from a Via Apollo Pro to a KT600A could be. Going from a Via chipset to a SIS chipset is significant. Things like whether the new motherboard has/adds USB or Firewire support isn't significant. Neither is something like the IDE controllers on a new board supporting UDMA133 as opposed to only UDMA66 on a previous one.

In your case Beggarall, unless the previous motherboard was quite old, I would say Train is on target. It's not the HAL that needs to change, rather that the mb swap has caused a significant impact on a number of drivers and related support files. And it sounds like in this case (as has been stated by SS and Train) that an over-the-top/repair install is needed to correct things.

However, now that you say that things hung on the hardware (re)detection phase of the install there may be more or other problems here. Try MaFai Jak's suggestion of starting with the XP Install diskettes maybe. I'm not sure that's gonna change anything, but see what happens...

I apologize again Beggarall for hijacking to some extent this thread for my ramblings above.

[Train]

Originally posted by Beggarall
Thankyou for the replies. When I put the CD in a message appears that says (something like) "Windows is testing your hardware configuration" and then nothing happens. I have left it for 30 mins or so - is that long enough? Will try again and post back.

What cards are in the computer other that the video card?
Might remove all but the video card and try the install.