NationStates Jolt Archive

I recently purhcased some new parts for my computer. A new motherboard, power supply, processor and graphics card. I installed everything and turned it on and it started working fine. After a few moments I relized that I had forgotten that I had to install windows with the new equipment. Before I did this however, I wanted to rebuild my old computer and take a lot of stuff off of my harddrive and put it on an external so I wouldn't lose it. I put my old parts back together, and turned it on, and it goes into system hang every time. I've tried cold booting, I've taken it apart and put it back together just to be safe, and it always freezes up on me. It will go to one of two screens. The first is a black screen where it says "detecting primary master....[press f4 to skip]" and under that "press DEL to enter setup; press alt+f2 to enter EZ flash utility." I've tried letting it sit there for almost half an hour to be sure, and it never progresses past that. Pushing f4 or del or alt+f2 doesn't work either, it just sits there. The other screen it goes to is the BIOS setup utility. The keyboard won't respond there either, it just sits there frozen. There is an activity LED on the front panel of my case that flashes when it's, well, active, and it's just remaining a solid red. The activity LED on my cdrom drive is the same.

I'm very confused and really just want to save some of my data. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.


a list of my components is as follows:

radeon 9800 pro
x2 corsair ddr 1GB
aspire 520 watt power supply
maxtor diamondmax HDD
ASUS a7v600 MB

again, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Take a sledgehammer to it.

The easiest solution is to take your harddrive to a friend who hasn't f*cked his computer up, and transfer the data there.

You could also first try running the new computer (with the old harddrive) with a linux live-CD and then copy the data.

The fact that it doesn't complete the POST makes me think there's something loose. Check the connections again, verify that the CPU and memory are sitting properly on the motherboard, disconnect and reconnect the hard drive. If that fails, disconnect everything except power, monitor and keyboard and see if you can get to the "NO BOOT DISK" or something like that, then start reconnecting things one by one.

Did you change the processor? If you did and had to refit the fan, make sure there's a new coat of thermal grease in there and that the BIOS settings are properly configured. The CPU could be overheating. If there's thermal grease and can't get to the BIOS, reset your motherboard and try booting up again.

If it was a connection issue with the CPU or memory, it wouldn't have started up.

To reset your MoBo, remove the jumper near the Mobo battery.

If it's not detecting the primary master, chances are you need to check the connections to your disks and then go into the bios to ensure that they are being correctly detected and that the boot order is correct.

Take a sledgehammer to it.

Yes.

If it was a connection issue with the CPU or memory, it wouldn't have started up.
The connection could be just firm enough to start, then as it heats up become loose. I've had stranger things happening. Doesn't hurt to check for rusty connections either.

It's strange that it should freeze completely. Even with a disconnected hard drive it would still boot and stop, but not freeze. A failing power supply is another possibility.

I once had a memory stick fail, not completely, so the computer would boot up and run almost as normal, but would corrupt data and crash seemingly at random (which wasn't, just when trying to execute something from those memory addresses). That's another thing to check for.

Just install Windows on the new computer's harddisk (make sure you keep the same username), then just connect the old harddisk up to the new computer and copy files across, you should be able to access any information that is user-specific, you are just using the old harddisk as a normal disk, ignoring the Windows files on it.

The connection could be just firm enough to start, then as it heats up become loose. I've had stranger things happening. Doesn't hurt to check for rusty connections either.

It's strange that it should freeze completely. Even with a disconnected hard drive it would still boot and stop, but not freeze. A failing power supply is another possibility.

I once had a memory stick fail, not completely, so the computer would boot up and run almost as normal, but would corrupt data and crash seemingly at random (which wasn't, just when trying to execute something from those memory addresses). That's another thing to check for.
That sounds like what I went through.

The first part was when I build my PC. I had a problem with hard drive detection. Once it detected, I had to reinstall windows because Windows didn't like my AMND set up and preferred my old intel stuff. Clean install fixed that.

I agree with the power supply, but, they did say that they bought a new one. They should check connections first before checking that because it can freeze for any number of reasons, though, when I was having my problems with my PS, it did freeze in post (though it did that when I had evil Starforce on my PC - stupid copy protection shit).

Well, it's working now. Thanks for those tips guys, I appreciate it. It turned out the funky connection was the issue. It was coming loose after it would start up and it would just sorta freeze. Plugged 'er in tight and she's up and goin. Thanks again; I now know where to go for my tech questions.