Windows won't load

September 20, 2006 8:04 PM

Stuck at Windows Logo during boot up. Run out of ideas...

I just finished building my first computer.

Windows seems to install correctly. I get to Windows and I load a Nvidia display driver.

I restart and my machine hangs at the Windows Logo, forever loading.

So I reformat my machine and try again, same thing happens.

I reinstall several other times and try loading different drivers and everytime the same thing happens.

As long as I don't install a driver then Windows will load up normally if I restart.

Here are my system specs:
Asus P5NSLI Mobo
Seagate 320GB x raid 0
nvidia 7900GT
Windows XP

One thing to note, it was a huge pain getting raid to work because the raid driver doesn't fit on a floppy! I had to search around and ultimately had to slipstream the drivers into the Windows XP install cd. Could this be causing diffuculties?

My mobo has the most up to date BIOS.

I've totally hit a wall here anything at all would be much appreciated!

posted by aznhalf to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Response by poster: Forgot to mention that I'm running Core 2 E6400, dont think it matters much though.
posted by aznhalf at 8:14 PM on September 20, 2006

Can you get it to run in safe mode, VGA. The fact that you get a logo says the video is working. When you press the F8 key do you get a list of boot options. How do you have the disk partitioned for RAID? Have you tried a KNOPPIX disk to see if you can get the system to work in Linux?
posted by ptm at 8:15 PM on September 20, 2006

Response by poster: I knew I would miss some details.

I have two Seagates running in Raid 0.

I can run in safemode, I can also run on the last known good config option.
posted by aznhalf at 8:18 PM on September 20, 2006

Which nVidia drivers are you installing? Are they the ForceWare Release 90 drivers from the nVidia site?
posted by Justinian at 9:07 PM on September 20, 2006

Response by poster: Yes, got all the recent drivers from nVidia.
posted by aznhalf at 9:58 PM on September 20, 2006

Not sure about what might be causing Windows to stall during boot up, but should you desire advice on how to fit the SATA drivers onto a floppy, check out this question of mine from a few weeks back.
posted by Effigy2000 at 10:30 PM on September 20, 2006

RAID 0 with onboard nVidia chipsets is kind of a hit or miss proposition. The good news is, you get little if any practical performance gain by using RAID 0, if you are running 32 bit Windows XP, since 32 bit XP bumps its head up against ithe builtin limitations of its old SCSIport I/O architecture, far before even a 2 drive RAID setup is reasonably utilized. (And yes, SCSIport is typically invoked by any SATA or IDE miniport driver doing RAID, for it's ability to do scheduled I/O, even though the actual disks aren't SCSI. That's the way miniport drivers work.)

So, forget RAID, unless you're doing RAID 1 mirroring for reliability reasons, in which case, use an external RAID controller with stable drivers and a battery module for any cache it may have, or a good UPS for the entire box.
posted by paulsc at 1:07 AM on September 21, 2006

Response by poster: Interesting article about RAID. I've used RAID on previous machines and have noticed a performance boost, maybe I'll do some benchmark test.

I don't believe the problem is with the RAID drivers though but I'll try it without RAID.
posted by aznhalf at 1:18 PM on September 21, 2006