XP wont load past boot screen

[sealwatcher]

Hi all,

Here is a problem which is quite similar to others I have read in this forum but there are a few minor differences, so I hope someone can help.

I've installed a new hard drive just today, something I've done many times before without a problem. It is just a backup drive to be used for video editing -not a primary drive. However, once rebooting I get as far as the windows boot screen and then it hangs. The screen goes black, my monitors power down and nothing happens. Occassionally it reboots on it's own accord but instead of seeing the usual dos prompt screen all I get are some nastly looking blocky patterns. I usually have to turn the power off at the wall when this happens. I get no error messages on the screen at any time.

The good news is I CAN BOOT IN SAFE MODE! This is the difference I have found with other similar problems posted. I can boot in safe mode and safe mode with networking no problem. I can see all my HDD's and everything seems fine. From here I've tried doing system restore several times with no effect. Apart from that, I have no idea what to try so I hope someone out there can lend a helping hand.

My setup looks basically like this:

XP Pro, SP2
P4
Abit IC&-MAx3 mobo
1gig ram
nvidia 5700le
c: WD raptor 74gb (running sata 1)
d: sony dual layer DVD r/rw
F: WD 40gb (running on IDE 1)
g: WD raptor 74gb (sata 2)-this is the drive I just added, apart from that my system config is the same.

Thanks again, I look forward to anyone's advice.

[sealwatcher]

*bump*

[sealwatcher]

no love for the seal?

[HalOfBorg]

Have you tried removing the new HD and booting?

[sealwatcher]

Yep.

I'll give a rundown of everything I've done since my last post to try and give the best picture possible. Please hang in there.

So I know what people might be thinking, the problem must be a simple bios issue or something to do with the disk configuration. And that's exactly what I thought...but it is proving to be much more complex!

-I've checked and double checked my bois. It is recognising all my disks, and my boot order is correct.
-I've tried booting without the new disk and my other backup IDE disk. I've also booted my master disk off each sata connector seperately (sata 1-6). I've also tried every combination known to man ie: running my disks of sata 1&2, then 2&3 (since they run off different controllers.)
-Nothing seems to have worked.

I'ts quite possible that I'm still missing somthing, so feel free to point anything out if you can. But after having done all that, my gut is telling me the problem is somewhere in Windows. I guess my main reason for thinking this is that since I can actually boot windows in safe mode, would that rule out a bios or disk problem? If it were a bios issue, would windows load at all, safe mode or not?

I've since booted from the windows CD in an effort to run the Windows Recovery program, just to see what it comes up with. However I have no idea how to use it. Doh. Once the recovery program runs and I've "logged in", I'm given a list of options in dos. What would one recommend I use to see if there is in fact a problem with windows?

Cheers in advance for any advice.

[sealwatcher]

Okay, well I guess this one has understandabally gone into the "too-hard" basket.

In the end it got too hard for me as well so I gave up and just did a fresh install of XP on my new HDD. Here's what I tried beforehand for those who may be interested -especially those with the same problem.

-I ran the ms recovery console and used it to disable the graphics drivers, sound drivers and a few other things that I thought could possibly be causing the problem. No luck.
-So I then tried a repair install. That only made things worse as I could not even boot in safe mode once complete. Windows would give the blue screen saying "windows has stopped to prevent damage, restart your computer...etc."

So I thought 'oh well, might as well start from scratch.' I fresh installed windows on the new hard disk, which has now become the boot drive. Once finished I plugged the problematic disk back in and I can simply access that as a separate drive. It's going to be a real pain in the ass having to re-install and update everything from scratch but at least I haven't lost any data. Eventually I will format that drive and it will become the backup.

Everything is working fine now. It would appear that the problem did in fact lie somewhere in windows...god knows where. With a little more persistence I may have found the problem but a fresh install seems to have cured all.