Computer being Issueful

Issueful: Full of Issues

Ok, I just did a "clean" install with Win XP Home. Everything went ok during the install. Now Windows will not load completely. Most of the time when I'm at the Windows loading screen (with the little green progress bar) the computer just freezes. Other times, though, it will freeze after the check disk. Whether I cancel the check or let it do it's thing, right after it will lock up. Another one I've gotten is a Stop Error that says "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL ". And finally there's the random restarts while Windows is trying to load. In any case, Windows never actually loads completely. As you can imagine, this is terribly frustrating.

Solutions I've tried already:
Swapped Power Supply (because of random restarts)
Checked Memory with Memcheck86 (no errors)
Swapped Video Card (same problems with both)
Update BIOS

Hardware:
MOBO - Soyo SY-KT333 Dragon Ultra (Platinum Edition)
Processor - Athlon XP 2200+
RAM - Samsung 512MB DDR 333MHz
Video Card - ATI Radeon 8500 LE
Power Supply - Antec 365W

UPDATE (about 15 minutes later):
Ok, I finally got it to load and got a chance to install all the updated drivers and such. I then had to reboot and now I'm stuck again. Now, though, it seems the stop error is my biggest problem. When I restarted it froze and the Windows loading screen again, then I had to do a hard restart. Because of that Chkdsk ran and now before the countdown for chkdsk finishes I get a stop error (the same IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL one).

Someone please, oh please, help me out.

 

We need more information.

What was on the HDD previously?
Did you partition the HDD before the install?
Why install? New computer?

STOP errors are generally hardware/driver based. Be sure you have the latest driver versions.

Try removing recently installed drivers and reinstall one piece of hardware at a time, testing (see if the bsod still appear) after each install.

Or try removing the hardware items in device manager and let windows reinstall drivers one item at a time.

You will probably have to go into safe mode at first - F8.

 

Another thought, from mskb

 

Answers and Responses

The HDD was previously a secondary driver on another system and just contained misc data.
I created a primary DOS partition, then formated the drive (FAT32).

Microsoft says my particular Stop Error could mean any number of things, but most likely either hardware failure or device driver problems. I have run the vid card in another computer, no problems, the memory tests without errors, as far as I can tell, all the hardware is functioning properly. I have installed all the newest drivers available from my hardware manufacturers.

I can get it to load Windows completely now (only if I'm very patient as it takes at least half a dozen restarts to get it there), but am now suffering from random restarts. For example, I was browsing my BIOS manufacturer's website, I click on a link and bam, restart. AAAHHHHHH!!!!

 

Logitech

I am using a Logitech Optical mouse, but am just using whatever drivers Windows installed for it by default.

 

There is a little program I came across once called Microsoft Bootvis. If you can get on the computer....load and run the program...it will trace your boot and report what is booting, when, how long it took, etc. I was able to trace down some bad drivers that were causing me problems on boot.

Of course....to use it you have to be able to get on the computer. So this might be a waste of time for you.

Good luck.

 

One other thing (actually...I didn't read your post completely ).......

Sudden re-starts for no reason is a characteristic of a particular virus that I can't remember the name of. Did you re-format your drive before re-installing XP? IF not...I know it is a bother...but I would think seriously about doing that.

Good luck.

 

If you want keep the system from auto restarting:

Go into Control Panel > System > Advanced Tab > Startup and Recovery settings > uncheck Automatically restart.

Regards - Charles

 

Can you elaborate on that? You should have been able to use the Windows cd to reformat the drive at install. Did you select the quick or full format? Why didn't you use NTFS? (just out of curiosity, not that it matters)

Is you XP install disk a retail one or a recovery cd? Is it scratched or damaged in any way?

Johanna

 

A funny thing happened on the way to going with Linux

Well, not really.
Ok, I just spent almost two hours on the phone with Microsoft. It turns out that Windows doesn't like my ATI video drivers! I double checked that the drivers I had were for WinXP (they are) and so now I'll install all the current windows updates and SP1. Hopefully that will allow me to install my video drivers again. If not, I guess a new vid card is in my 'puter's near future.

Thanks a lot to those who replied, I really appreciate you taking the time to give me a hand in this.

 

Johanna

I created a primary DOS partition because I had previously deleted all partitions on the drive. Windows will not recognize the drive (and therefore cannot format) without this main partition. I formated FAT32 because Linux won't recognize NTFS (without add'l software) and I have other Linux boxes on the LAN that I like to have access to each other's files.