I'm at my wits end here. After three days of attempting to troubleshoot and test, I've given up on doing it myself. Here's my situation:

Original hardware:

motherboard: ga-ep45-ud3p
cpu: Q6600 with zalman fan
ram: 2x1gig corsaid DDR2, 800MHz
harddrive: 74 gig raptor
OS: windows xp media center edition
gpu: 8800 ultra
other: a USB card

original problem: one day computer just wouldn't boot up. kept giving blue screens and instantly shutting down before i could even read them, everytime i tried to bootup.

i decided i had a problem with my hard drive.

i bought a 300 gig velociraptor.

first attempt:

windows xp professional 64-bit

first couple attempts at installation had problems and ended in blue screens, but the 3rd attempt went through.

i had windows 64-bit installed. i brought my mobo drivers over via usb thumbdrive.

everything i downloaded was corrupt. every single installer. every single application from chat programs to nvidia drivers.

i attempted to re-install. from then on. it would never get past the blue installation screen in dos where it says "setup is copying over files" it'd always get stuck at "setup is unable to copy dvdplay.exe"

and if i have it skip that, it usually finishes the copying, then blue screens.


i tried ubuntu. it worked fine.

i did a memory scan with ubuntu. i let the scan run 30 hours. found no errors.

i let ubuntu do a hard disk scan, found no problems.

ubuntu was stable.

so i tried booting to my windows xp professional 32-bit cd.. and very early in the setup, it blue screens saying it can't find pci.sys


i'm at my wits end. every one of my individual problems has been seen before and has some solution that doesn't apply to me at all.

it seems there is some underlying problem. it must be hardware, right?


is it some settings in bios? (i have it set to boot to the cd)

is it a bad SATA cable? (then why did ubuntu run without any problems?)

bad hard drive? (then why did ubuntu run without any problems and why did ubuntu's disk scan detect no problems?)

bad ram or ram slots? (then why did ubuntu run without any problems and why did ubuntu's memory scan detect no problems? also i swapped the ram cards.. and attempted things with each card by itself to no avail)

bad mobo? (then why did ubuntu run without any problems?)

bad dvd drive? (then why did ubuntu run without any problems?)

does it matter which SATA connector on my mobo i use? (realy doubt this matters at all)

coincidentally all the OS's i've tried (except ubuntu) were corrupt? (really unlikely)

ram in the wrong slots? (i have the first stick in the slot closest to the cpu, then the next stick two slots down)



I'm at my wits end here. I've gotten different blue screens at different stages of different installations of different operating systems. Or it's simply a failure to copy a file over.. followed by a blue screen when the file is skipped.

i've tried swapping my two ram sticks.. or removing one altogether. i've tried windows 64-bit, 32-bit, windows 2k (yes i know it needs a small partition.. so i gave it one.. and it still blue screened during installation)

Hi dwb

Welcome to the forum

When you get the blue screens error saying it can't find pci.sys

Is it a Blue screen stop error such Stop 0X0000007E?

If so what is the exact stop error message

Jim

STOP: 0x0000007E (0XC000005, 0XF748E0BF, 0XF78DA208, 0X7FD09F08)

pci.sys - Address F748E0BF base at F7487000, DateStamp 3b7d855c

Originally Posted by dwb1729

STOP: 0x0000007E (0XC000005, 0XF748E0BF, 0XF78DA208, 0X7FD09F08)

pci.sys - Address F748E0BF base at F7487000, DateStamp 3b7d855c

There is a thread started here

Windows wont install

with a very similar error message : -

Stop: 0x0000007E (0xC0000005,0xF748E0bF, 0Fx78DAZ08, 0xF78D9F08) pci.sys -
Address f748E0BF base at F7487000, Datestamp 3b7d855c

The poster say's the problem started when he flashed his bios.

Could you tell us if you have flashed your bios also?




A STOP: 0x0000007E Error
A system thread generated an exception which the error handler did not catch. There are numerous individual causes for this problem, including hardware incompatibility, a faulty device driver or system service, or some software issues. Check Event Viewer (EventVwr.msc) for additional information.

http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm


They also give a number of possible causes of this error see list

Could you check the list and see if any apply to you.


Jim

I resolved the issue by booting to a version of XP with service pack 3.

Apparently Windows XP pre-SP2 cannot handle your video card being PCI express.

So basically, with a legitimate copy of original Windows XP, any computer using a modern video card is unbootable.

Beyond belief.

Ubuntu here I come.

Why beyond belief? There were no PCI express cards available when XP was initially released or at SP1 time either. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.

Originally Posted by dwb1729

I resolved the issue by booting to a version of XP with service pack 3.

Apparently Windows XP pre-SP2 cannot handle your video card being PCI express.

So basically, with a legitimate copy of original Windows XP, any computer using a modern video card is unbootable.

Beyond belief.

Ubuntu here I come.

Glad to see you got it sorted

I was going to suggest making a slipstream disc after you checked other possibilities at the link.
This as the added benefit of not doing a massive update with a clean install of XP

How to on slipstream here How to Slipstream Windows XP Service Pack 3 to Create an Integrated XP Setup Disk with SP 3 (howtohaven.com)

If you intend to move to Ubuntu I trust you use your PCI express card for video editing only.

Because there's very little in the Penguin gaming arena that will tax your 8800 ultra.

Penguins still got a long way to go to catch up windows in that field.

Jim