Flashing artifacts

[jkohn88]

I currently installed windows 7 premium, switching from Windows xp. Everything seemed to be going on. went through install, did all the reboots. I am using 32 bit operating system as well. The bios screen loads upon start up, after that the screen switches to a bunch of colors with flashing symbols.. Symbols are smiley faces, pretty much random all over the place. I have tried reinstall many of times, and I am not able to run in safe mode at all. I was trying to cut my losses and switch back to xp but that is not able to happen either. I have the bios set to boot from cd. I am able to load the windows 7 disc, but when I put the xp disc in, it is not able to load. I verified xp disc does work, by putting it in another computer, and the disc loads just fine. Its an E Machines 3200+ T6212. Using a ATI Radeon Graphics card, with a AMD 64 Processor. Any help would be great.pic

PS: the picture attached is from another user I was able to find off the net. I was not able to get any help from that post, but I am seeing exactly as the picture indicates

 

[Qdos]

Please complete your system specifications in the user control panel area.

Without that information nobody will really be able to assist you.

Presumably you used the W7 Upgrade Advisor and didn't upgrade from within XP?

 

[jkohn88]

I updated what information I could. I basically put in the windows 7 disc, and I ran it as 32 bit custom, because from what I hear, you have to do it that way comeing from xp

 

[alphanumeric]

Did you change the boot order in your BIOS so its set to boot from the optical drive first? When you tested your XP CD in another system did you try to boot from it or just load it from an already running Windows OS. The reason I ask is that some people confuse auto-run with being bootable, they are not the same thing.

 

[jkohn88]

I tried re writing the disk partition to all zero's and re installing 7. I noticed after everything is done, it has me name the pc and setup a password.. after that I select home network, and then it sets to restart again.. towards the end a screen flashes real quick with some text and almost like a button you can click... I cant verify because it switches so fast. I am still getting color blocks.

 

[jkohn88]

Great point Alpha. I was already running an OS, and never tried booting from a restart. Ive tried HDD group, and CD rom in that order in BIOS. Ive tried every combo from cd rom, hdd group, to disabling everything but the cd rom and no luck the disc

 

[jkohn88]

Sorry for all the forum spam. I noticed that I have an ATI Radeon HD series after market graphics card. But the PC also has an onboard ATI Radeon x200 IGP. Is there a chance the guy that built it did RAID on both and they are conflicting? I just took out the HD series and I am going to try and re install see if I have any luck

 

[alphanumeric]

Depending on the BIOS you may have a one time boot option. For example if I press F8 during the post I will get a boot menu that will let be select what device I want to boot from for that boot sequence. On the next boot up it goes back to what was originally set in the BIOS. The other way to do it is to set your DVD as first device and start your OS install. Then on the next boot up switch it back to the HDD. Just setting the DVD to first device may not be enough. You also may have to watch for a "Press any key to boot from CD-ROM" prompt and press a key on your keyboard. You only get a few seconds to do it and if you don't it will skip your DVD drive and move on to the next device set in the BIOS.

I'm not sure what you mean by RAID in reference to your Video cards. You don't raid videos cards, its either SLI for NVidia, or Crossefire for ATI. I do believe you would need hybrid Crossfire to link onboard with an add-in card. That would be a BIOS setting in any case.

I'm not sure about Windows 7 but XP had a VGA mode as one of the F8 options. If Windows 7 has the same option that will tell Windows to load the basic Video driver instead of any updated one it may have installed. If windows 7 has that option it might let get to your desktop and try and figure out what is happening..

 

[jkohn88]

I was able to borrow a copy of windows xp black. Selected a fresh partition, with no trace of an old OS. reformatted drive, then did the install.. Upon restart went through bios made sure loading was in correct order. after saying press any key to boot from disc I get A disk read error occurred Press Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot im stumped. I am pretty sure my Western Digital 300gb HDD is fine, as well as no motherboard issues. Ive read many fixes with people already running a working windows OS. not sure what to do here since I have a new error in the start up

 

[jkohn88]

I borrowed a copy of windows black. I am only trying to use it, So I can get a working windows. Once then I can use my xp disc, and product key to install my genuine copy. It will only run from a running OS via Autorun. Disc will not load in anyway from bootup

 

[alphanumeric]

Windows XP Black doesn't sound like an official release of windows XP. If its a pirated copy you have no way of knowing if its been altered and or modified and I wouldn't trust it. Is your other XP CD an original Microsoft CD or a copy of one? Is your windows 7 DVD an original Microsoft DVD or a copy?

 

[jkohn88]

Yeah its not legit, and yeah I was just desperate to get a desktop. My windows 7 is a burned copy, lost original, and the actual xp is the hard copy. I was never able to get xp to boot from start up.. but I might beable to auto run it now but im not sure

 

[alphanumeric]

If that PC has a floppy drive you could give this a try.
How to obtain Windows XP Setup disks for a floppy boot installation
Is your XP CD an upgrade version? Some of those were not bootable and had to be launched from another MS OS.
EDIT: I had an older PC that wouldn't boot from a Windows 7 DVD, it was a BIOS limitation. Windows XP was fine but Windows 7 got me a "Cannot boot from CD code 5" message. I had to install XP and then run the Windows 7 setup from there. It might be worth updating your BIOS if it adds windows 7 support. You'd have to look at the change logs for the latter versions to see what is fixed or updated.

 

[jkohn88]

Hmm, I will definately have to try that thank you. Eventually I would like to beable to run Windows 7, since that was my goal and what I was trying to do in the first place. The Cd is an actual base copy not an upgrade, but I actually have a hard copy of the upgrade as well, Speaking of Xp. And the Bios limitation sounds very reasonable, considering I do not have the most outdated PC. I really appreciate all the help

 

[alphanumeric]

If that motherboard has onboard video you could try removing your add-in video card and see if you can get to your Windows Desktop. Once you get XP installed I would run the windows 7 upgrade adviser before you try installing Windows 7 again.

Download: Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor - Microsoft Download Center - Download Details