Hardware trouble

[Rad]

My friend has been having some weird computer problems for the past few weeks, system reboots, freezing while windows is loading, system freezing etc.

Here is his computer, with added ram. It doesn't help to remove the added RAM when installing though.

I gave him everything I could suggest but nothing seemed to work. It was not overheating. He decided to just reinstall XP, he had a Gateway so of course he couldn't reinstall with the same key, but he had one from an old computer.

His XP CD would BSOD during the installation, which was weird because he had to use it (several times) before. He's not the most secure user you'll find

Anyway, he tried using the recovery disc from Gateway but as it was booting up it did the "Press any key to boot from CD". Then it went to a black screen with a flashing underscore, then just went to a black screen and nothing happened (He waited "like 5 minutes or something").

So now he borrowed his dads Vista Home Premuim DVD and tried that, it went farther than any other and got to the part that says "Unpacking Files", and stayed at 0% for over a half hour. Vista deleted/renamed a file used by XP so he can't even boot to it at all now.



So I don't know what to do, and he's tried taking out extra RAM, changing his BIOS settings etc.

Does anyone have any ideas? His warranty is probably void because he tried to reinstall an older copy of Windows...



Right now he's taking out his harddrive and is going to try to use a friends computer to install XP on it. The problem is, the new harddrive is SATA and his old PC uses IDE, and the motherboard does not support SATA for the older one and vice versa for the new one.

He's kind of screwed right now...

 

[enouwee]

So I don't know what to do, and he's tried taking out extra RAM, changing his BIOS settings etc.

First, set the BIOS back to "safe" or "factory default" settings, after writing down the important entries in case you later need them.
Then, run a memory test, rather than removing the modules.

What error code appeared in the BSOD?

Right now he's taking out his harddrive and is going to try to use a friends computer to install XP on it. The problem is, the new harddrive is SATA and his old PC uses IDE, and the motherboard does not support SATA for the older one and vice versa for the new one.

The other PC must not use a SATA controller in AHCI mode, otherwise the new installation will be useless. Success depends on how "compatible" the components are. It could work if both mainboards have a similar southbridge (ICH5 vs. ICH8).

But given you already trashed the installation, get the most important data off the harddisk, wipe it (including the MBR and partition table), power it off for about a minute and try a new installation.

 

[Rad]

Thanks enouwee I'll talk to him tomorrow and get him to try out your suggestions and hopefully come back with the BSOD error message.