Power on the PC and find out that it's a fresh instalation...

Discussion in 'Software' started by albertc30, Dec 2, 2008.

  1. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    Hello.
    I had installed windows xp pro sp3 on my pc Athlon 64 3000+ with 2GBs DDR400.
    I installed office 2003 and allot of other software I need.
    I have also installed need for speed underground which is one of my old favourite games.
    I have played yesterday a bit and saved the game. Played another bit this morning before going to work.
    I tried to install mcafee but for some reason didn't let me to, unknown server error 404 and I have installed this quite a few times from my account online.
    Anyways, switched off the pc and went to work.
    Now, I just got home and powered on the pc only to find out that it's like a brand new fresh windows installation, no drivers installed, no game, no office, nothing.
    It has been 12 years working and building and repairing computers and never ever have seen such thing.
    I am using my other old pc duron 800 to post this.
    What on earth has happened here you guys? Anybody has ever experienced such a thing?
    It really annoys me as I have to open the tower now to have a cd-rom plugged in and a floppy drive so that I can load the sata drivers as windows do not pick these ones up by default so my already sata dvdrw won't do me no good.
    Any ideas as what had happen here?
    Cheers,
    Albert, C
     
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  2. Sparky
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    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    Can you browse to the directories where the software has been installed?

    Perhaps the user profile is currupt and it hasnt loaded the shorcuts or something like that.

    If you check through the system restore points it should have restore points when you have installed some of the software, are they still there?
     
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  3. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    You could also check event manager and see if it has any errors in it
     
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  4. NightWalker

    NightWalker Gigabyte Poster

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    Second partition with an XP install and a dodgy boot.ini
     
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  5. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    I must admit that I did installed the OS a couple of times without formatting as I can't aford to loose some of the data on the HDD in question, but windows installation did pick that up and I did pressed L to delet previous wINDOWS folder...
    Could have this caused the problem?

    I have also hardly ever come accross the need to install drivers from floppy (F6) to load drivers for controllers. Did it in the past due to SCSI adaptec controller I had in my server. This motherboard does not see the two SATA HDD I have connected to it and not having an IDE optical disk reader and no floppy does me no favours with this pcs OS installation.

    All this work around what I have only cause I am not to keen on spending just over £1.000,00 on overclockers to get my next best ever dream pc with intels newest i7 CPU and triple channel memory as I think and know that if I wait I'll get this allot cheaper in 1 to 2 months time. I have the money and this is my dream pc, after this family will come into the pic, as booth me and my misses want kids and after that I don't think I'll be spending 1.000 on a pc unless life smiles a bit better then working at a damn turkey factory... lol damn turkeys...
     
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  6. Sparky
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    Sparky Zettabyte Poster Moderator

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    Did you do this after the McAfee install?
     
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  7. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    I'm afraid I have mate.

    Is there any other way to bypass the need for IDE optical drive and floppy to load the SATA drivers so that I can install the OS?

    I now have a clean IDE HDD 40GB for a fresh and clean instal.
     
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  8. greenbrucelee
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    triple channel not worth the money at the moment.

    Get something like the one in my sig :)
     
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  9. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    Actually on my second OS install for some weird reasson mcaffe wouldn't install... hummmm
     
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  10. greenbrucelee
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    greenbrucelee Zettabyte Poster

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    probably because it's already there (or some of it's core files) as you didn't wipe it before doing a reinstall.
     
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  11. Sparky
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    What was the error message when it was installing?
     
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  12. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    Instalation failled on all of the options mate.

    or

    Using the download from the my account online server error 404
     
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  13. supernova

    supernova Gigabyte Poster

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    Slipstream the drivers with install, plenty on google (slipstream cds) , but not easy first time esp OEM XP CDs.
    But do a network install rather than CD (as stated in other thread)
     
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  14. Darkfunnyguy

    Darkfunnyguy Byte Poster

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    Why did you not used the files and settings transfer wizard to backup your emails, data, messages and do a clean install?
     
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  15. albertc30

    albertc30 Kilobyte Poster

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    Hello Darkfunnyguy.

    The problem is not my personal files and e-mails etc as I have them backup in my NAS old dell optiplex intel 233MMX machine using NASLite... but tons of movies and musics and software that I haven't yet organized in a properlly fashioned order and I don't really want to loose them.



    AndiC, still if I have slipstream them into a windows cd I still can't have it read by my SATA dvdrw as it needs those drivers, am I wrong? ence the need for my IDE DVD Rom
     
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  16. supernova

    supernova Gigabyte Poster

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    there is a way around it if your BIOS has IDE legacy support for SATA and/or you can turn off AHCI however, there are issues turning back on when installed :cry:

    Systems with SATA cd rom drives often allow you to build a freedos boot disk from a image that is on the drivers cd. (with dos cdrom drivers) have a look on manufactures website

    or you could use my instructions to make a dos bootable flash drive from it.

    Freedos SATA cd driver

    http://marktsai0316.googlepages.com/gcdromfordos


    It is fiddly if you dont have a floppy either (other method is PXE or boot dos network)
     
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