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I'm no PC expert by any means, but I have built a PC (mine before), and other than incompatible RAM to begin with, I had no problems.
So the build went well and I booted the PC up and everything seemed to be fine. I put Windows XP in to install and setup began, but during the part where it checks your configuration at the start I got a blue screen (the 'Windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer one) and so I reset the PC but now it just hangs on the 'Verifying DMI Pool Data' screen.
I've tried a few things,
- Checked everything is connected properly and securely
- Tried each stick of RAM on it's own... everytime I changed the RAM around the 'Verifying DMI Pool Data' screen updates to 'Verifying DMI Pool Data ........... update success!' and then it just continues to hang
- Resetting to optimized defaults/fail safe in the BIOS, and also resetting the CMOS
None of this fixed the problem though.
Next I put the hard drive from my computer in to the new build and, sure enough, it booted up in to Windows XP first time. So I now know that, for some reason, I can't get past the DMI Pool Data screen because of the new hard drive.
However, another problem seems to have arisen. With the hard drive from my PC plugged in to this new one I can get to the desktop, sure, but after about 3 seconds the computer just resets. No error messages or blue screens, it just resets. Every time. I'm hoping that's just because of the hard drive's settings and drivers all confliction with the new computer's components though?
Finally I tried putting the new hard drive in to my existing PC and, as I was hoping, I got the ''Verifying DMI Pool Data' error! So, it's the new hard drive then I guess? Not sure why it got past the DMI Pool Data stage the first time I turned it on, but whatever.
Unfortunately I don't have an empty hard drive (or one I can empty) to test in the new computer.
So any other suggestions, or is my new hard drive just faulty and in need of a replacement?
Thanks.
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