mucasiola

Oh, I thought I said. Attempted "fixmbr" - This resulted in it hanging on "Verifying DMI Pool..." instead of giving the error. And I have located and played with (as stated in first post) the boot sequence over and over. I can not, however find any LAN option. I think that's everything.

Anyone? Mark

I have played with this alot. I have tried with HD booting first, removable first and CD first. I have even tried with everythign disabled but my HD. Similar results each time. I have tried reinstalling over 10 times I would guess. I have tried with my CD in and with it out. None seem to work. Also, my motherboard handles SATA hard drives which means that the windows XP installation does not require any additional drivers. Also, I have formatted and reinstalled windows XP about (at a guess) 5 times before with no troubles what so ever. Also, I have tried formatting in a few different ways. Like I said in the OP I even tried a low level format which did nothing. Sadly, I have no other PC with SATA capabilites. (Nor do I have access to one) I googled this problem beforehand and people have mentioned this option. However I can't find it on my BIOS and I have played about turning a few things on and off with no prevail. However, I will try again when I get the oppertunity. I will have a look around for this option. However I don't think I have come across it before. I will also attempt to fix the MBR. Thanks for the info. Thanks for the replies. I am trying to be as helpful as possible to you guys. If you neeed any more information just give me a shout. Mark

Hey guys, Firstly, I would like to say that thanks for reading. I know that for alot of people reading this might be considered as alot of effort as it is a mini essay. But any help provided would be great. I have listed all relevant PC parts at the bottom of my post. But I think the story/problem might be better to be read first. Right, so here's the deal. I decided to format my PC a few days ago as it was getting sluggish and also because I (Like many other computer fanatics) love to keep my PC clean, fresh and healthy. Plus I enjoy the whole formatting process, it feels great to have a new 'canvas' upon which to work with. Here's what I did. Step by step: Backed up everything I needed as usual Pop my XP Professional disk in Restart, boot from CD Delete all partitions from my HD Install in unpartitioned space Choose NTFS file format (non quick) I decide this is taking too long so restart and do steps 3 to 5 again but this time choose quick mode It formats fine and then copies the files from the CD fine It reboots and I am greeted by the following error: Nvidia Boot Agent 224.0523 Copyright (C) 2001-2005 NVIDIA Corporation Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable PXE-MOF: Exiting Nvidia boot agent Nvidia Boot Agent 224.0523 Copyright (C) 2001-2005 NVIDIA Corporation Copyright (C) 1997-2000 Intel Corporation PXE-E61: Media test failure, check cable PXE-MOF: Exiting Nvidia boot agent DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTERI have tried everything I can think of and I always seem to get this (or a similar) error. I know there is no problem with any other part of my PC and/or my windows disk as I got another random HD (which incidently I found in a bin) and installed windows on that. And that installation of Windows I am now writing this on. For some reason, I have a feeling that cancelling the format mid way is where I broke my HD and this is what is causing the error. But to be perfectly honest I have no idea what has actually happened. My HD and entire system was working completely fine before I decided to reinstall windows so I consider all my hardware not to be faulty. Here is what I have tried to attempt to fix it so far: I downloaded and used SpinRite which assessed my whole HD (Taking 5 hours) to tell me it was perfectly fine. I downloaded Samsung's formatting and checking program. That tested my HD to tell me nothing was wrong with it. Then I did a low level format and attempted reinstalling windows. Greeted by exactly thew same error Tried removing all my other drives (including my CD drive) and trying to boot into installation. Still nothing. I installed a linux distro (opensuse to be exact) and that booted fine. Attempted to install another version of XP Pro and also tried to install Vista. Both giving exactly the same problem. Tried fiddling with my bios. Trying both failsafe and optimised defauls. I have played with other settings too with no prevail. I would like to add that my BIOS recognises my HD fine too, just how it used to. So, eventually. I decided to ask someone with some real computer knowledge. So ladies and gentlemen. Any ideas? I have a problem. I hate being beaten by machine. We make these things we should be able to tell them what to do! So beating this will be a great releif for me. I probably COULD buy a new HD but I won't do that when 2 different pieces of software are telling me my HD is fine. Thanks for reading, Now here's my specs: Processor: AMD Athlon 64 3800+ (2.4 ghz) Memory: 2GB Ram Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 7600 GT Hard Drive: SAMSUNG SP2504C (250.06 GB) (SATA btw) Motherboard: ECS C51 GM-M ECS Web Site Anything else you need to know. Just ask. Thanks in advance. Not only would it be nice to fix my PC. But some learning along the way would be great too! Mark PS. I am accomodating a visitor for a few days at my house so I can not be on much until Tuesday. But I will try my best.