Help with some new hardware

[shadowfire452]

So I recently upgraded my computer. I installed a ECS A960M-M3 motherboard and an AMD Athlon II. When I boot from my IDE hard drive, I get an error saying something like "Error with operating system" or something similar. I had Windows XP Professional service pack 3 X86. Do I need to upgrade to a X64 bit operating system? Or could it be that I am using an IDE hard drive? Could it be a missing driver issue? Any advice?

 

[GhislainG]

You don't need to upgrade to a 64 bit OS. Besides you couldn't upgrade; you'd have to perform a new installation.

After you get "Error with operating system", what happens? Does it just sit there doing nothing or does it crash with error 0x0000007B?

 

[shadowfire452]

It just sits there, I think I need the motherboard drivers, but it won't boot from the drivers disc. Furthermore I wanted to upgrade because I have 4 gb of ram so 1 is now unusable, but I don't want to go through a new install.

 

[GhislainG]

Since it just sits there, this may not help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082

A complete reinstall may be required, but did you try repairing it? If you have important files, make sure you have a complete backup of the hard disk before doing anything to it. Did you perform a complete backup before installing the new motherboard or are you relying on the last complete backup just in case something goes bad?

 

[shadowfire452]

I don't really have anything I needed backed up, It would just be inconvenient to do a complete install. I only have a win 7 disc and the hard drive curently has xp installed so I can't do a repair anyway. Guess I'll just try a fresh install anyway.

 

[GhislainG]

Any technical reason to keep XP? If so, you could run XP as a VM.

 

[shadowfire452]

Nah, I just dOnt want to redownlOad my steam games. However now it refuses to boot from my cd drive. Bios recognizes it, however it will nit boot to it.

 

[GhislainG]

Is it in the correct boot order? What happens if you select the CD as the boot drive manually at POST?

 

[shadowfire452]

Yeah, I've changed the bOot order, when I dO, I get a disk error read. No error code, just "disc error read"

 

[GhislainG]

Are you using a DVD from Intel or one that you burned yourself?

 

[shadowfire452]

Came from the motherboard manufacturer

 

[GhislainG]

Make sure it's clean and/or try another DVD drive.

 

[shadowfire452]

Tried it, no avail. This motherboard has an ide hookup as well as 4sata hookups, so I can use my ide harddrive right? Furthermore should I have my hd set to master Or cable select?

 

[GhislainG]

It's up to you, but I prefer cable select. Is your DVD drive also IDE?

 

[shadowfire452]

I have an IDE and a sata DVD drive

 

[GhislainG]

You can't read the DVD on any of the drives?