Maxtor Sata 160GB and Asus P5K motherboard, help please!!

[Danger_Mouse]

I have recently purchased a whole new system but have kept the Maxtor Sata drive from my previous one. After connecting everything up i tried booting from the sata drive (which already has Vista installed) and the system failed to boot. The drive is recognised in the BIOS, and i have tried to repair Vista by booting from the CD, but no luck so far. Is this a problem with the hardware or with Vista? Here are my system specs:

-Asus P5K Motheboard
-Maxtor Sata 160GB HDD
-Sapphire x1950 Pro Ultimate Graphics Card
-Intel E6420 Dual Core Processor
-Thermaltake 500W Tr2 Value Power Supply

Any help would be greatly appreciated,

Thanks

[Taxation]

You would need to format the hard drive and install windows fresh again

[Danger_Mouse]

Thanks for the advice, but what has made this happen? The HDD was working perfectly fine before i put in the new PC. I'm using OCZ 667Mhz memory, is this compatible with the motherboard?

[soptom]

There's just too many differences between your old system and the new one, format and reinstal and I'm sure it will be fine.

[Danger_Mouse]

Thanks very much, i have heard this from a few sources now and i am going to try it later.

[Taxation]

The reason is, because everything in your hard drive in configured to your old system, it's just something you have to do

[Danger_Mouse]

I have put the Vista disk in the drive and told the pc to boot from the dvd drive. However, the 'windows is loading files' comes up, and the bar loads completely, but then nothing happens. I know the disc works as i used it yesterday to try and repair vista, and it worked fine. Is there anything else i should be doing?

[Danger_Mouse]

I just thought i'd add this list of everything i have tried so far:

-Putting the HDD back in my old pc; works fine.
-Trying the RAM in different slots (2x1GB sticks); made no difference.
-Repairing vista using original disc; no difference.
-Booting windows in every available mode; no difference (safe mode stops at 'crcdisk.sys', if this is helpful).
-Booting from Vista disc to format HDD and reload windows; stops where i have previously stated.

I am beginning to think that there may be a compatability issue with the RAM, or maybe a problem with the motherboard. I know that my DVD drive and HDD work fine as they are from my old system, and that the Vista disc also works.

Sorry if i'm listing inappropriate ideas, i'm quite new to all this stuff.

[Taxation]

Are all your components vista compatable??
I had this problem with my old computer

[Danger_Mouse]

Well they are all fairly new components, and as the Vista disc worked yesterday i presume they must be compatable. Unless there is anything there that you recognise as having poor compatability with Vista?

[Danger_Mouse]

I have formatted the HDD in my old pc but the install still stops at 'windows is loading files', which isnt even the Vista install screen. The screen goes blank after the bar loads. Novatech told me to install the latest bios but this hasnt helped. Any ideas?

[Coops]

What is the exact P5K board you have. P5K is a series however there are loads of variants such as P5K-V or P5K-Deluxe etc etc.

What BIOS version are you running now???

Please provide detailed hardware spec of your system including all connected devices including external used during the Install of Vista.

[Danger_Mouse]

System specs:

-Asus P5K 775 DDR2 P35 Chipset (just the basic version of the board
-2x1GB OCZ 667Mhz Dual Channel Gold
-Intel E6420 2x2.13 Core 2 Duo
-Thermaltake Golden Orb 2 Cooler
-Saphire x1950 Pro Ultimate 256mb PCI-E
-Maxtor 160 GB sata drive
-Microsoft USB wireless keyboard and mouse
-DVD Rewrite drive
-Thermaltake Soprano Tower Case with window
-AOC Flat Panel LCD Monitor
-Thermaltake 500W Value TR2 Power Supply

I now have bios version 0603 which i installed via a usb stick.

[Coops]

Do you have a different DVD Drive you can use to do a quick test.

I came across a problem before with another customer where his Vista Disc had problems being read. This leading to the setup not working. It was not a DVD Disc problem as such but the drive just had issues with the vista DVD. A different make of drive we used to test with worked fine with the Vista DVD suggesting the drive was the problem.
In the end the customer made a copy of the Vista DVD " For backup Purposes" " We cannot condone copying of Microsoft Media" and used this to install with in his new drive and the copy worked fine in this drive that the Vista Original would not. It was very strange but i am curious if this is similar issue. Please note this does not mean the DVD Drive is faulty. Its just something to do with the DVD disc and the drive make / Design / Firmware. Customer never had any issues with Read and Write of other DVD in this drive.

Also what make is your optical drive.

How long do you leave the system before deciding that it has hung??

[Danger_Mouse]

I don't have another DVD drive but i can get a different vista disc? I am not sure of the make of the optical drive but i have had it for a couple of years now.

[Danger_Mouse]

I have now tried a different DVD drive, the Vista disc in both, and two different XP discs in both, to no success. I'm going to take the stuff to novatech as soon as I can to see if they can find any fault with the new parts. Are there any other things that people recommend before I take the stuff in? Oh, and I have left the system for about an hour before switching it off.

[anthonygriff]

The only things I can think of that may be causing this problem are:

1. The bios is set to detect a virus and this is causing a conflict.

or

2. I know you have tried the memory in different slots, but have you tried just one stick of memory in slot one? The reason I ask this is that I have a Foxconn mobo and this had problems with two sticks of ocz 512mb. ram fitted but no problem with just a single stick, even after I had adjusted the voltage for them. One of these problems being that an installation of xp would sometimes blue screen for no apparent reason after about 15 mins.

Other than that I can't think of anything else other than a faulty mobo.

Edit: I changed my memory to 2 x 1gb Kingston sticks and have no problems at all now. Also, when I did memory tests on the ocz no problems were shown. That was using memtest 86 and windows memory test.

[Danger_Mouse]

The problem's sorted now. There was a compatability issue between the OCZ Ram and the motherboard. Switched it to Corsair 800Mhz and now everything works fine. Oblivion on max settings looks amazing! :D