Windows won't load

[ImplyingThread]

OK, so I ordered a bunch of new computer parts online and they arrived today. I did a lot of research and decided to buy a DFI board because of its awesome OC'ing abilities. I know this board is kindof picky about the RAM it uses, but I haven't bought any new RAM yet because I plan on buying it a local store that sells some nice ram for much cheaper price than online.

 

Anyway, I built this comp very carefully. I've done a few builds in the past and I'm still kindof a newb at it, but I'm pretty sure that there are no problems with my installation. I started the comp without the HDD attached outside the case to make sure it was working. Everything checked out OK so I installed it in the case and hooked everything up. This time I turned it on and it showed the BIOS like it did the first time, but when it started to load windows it suddenly crashed. I can see a blue screen flash for a fraction of a second before it crashes. I think it might be the blue screen of death, but I'm not sure.

 

My first thought was, "It must be my old memory!" so I went in to the bios and fiddled around a bit. I ran memtest with the default settings it was getting errors. I set the timings really high for stability (something like: 4 5 5 10). I ran memtest with those settings and got no errors, so I figured that it was fixed now. However, when i tried to boot up again it still crashed.

 

I also tried booting from the Windows disk because I thought that Windows might not like my new hardware. When the installation screen came up I said repair because I didn't want to reinstall windows and lose all the data I have on my hard drive. That didn't work either. I'm using that same hard drive right now to write this message so the hard drive isn't broken.

 

So what is the problem? I hope it's just the memory because I plan on buying some new stuff really soon. If I have to reinstall windows to accomadate for the new hardware thats ok as also. I just want to make sure that it's not something else so I don't have to waste more time trying to fix this.

 

Thanks

[ImplyingThread]

one more thing: I've tried booting in safe mode of course, but it still doesn't work

[Praz]

You didn't say how long you ran Memtest. You should run tests #5 and #8 for 8-10 passes and the complete set of tests for a couple of hours if you're using 512MB of memory.

 

If you're using the hard drive from a different system you need to format and do a clean install of Windows.

[ImplyingThread]

Thanks, I ran memtest through all the tests until it started at #1 again, so I assumed this was enough. But if I have to reformat then I guess I'll have to start backing up all my important files

[Praz]

Thanks, I ran memtest through all the tests until it started at #1 again, so I assumed this was enough.

That's not enough time.