Hopefully someone can help me with this because I don't really know where to start. I decided to upgrade my computer recently because the processor was quite an old model. I was running an Athlon XP 2100+ processor. When I looked into upgrading, I found out that my motherboard could only handle up to an XP 2400+, which seemed like a pointless upgrade, so I decided to buy a new motherboard too. I've now got an Asus A38-SLI Deluxe with an Athlon 64 3800+ processor now. I also had to upgrade my graphics card because my previous one was AGP and was unsupported by the new board. I'm now running an Nvidia 7600GT PCIE card.

When I start up the pc, the motherboard start page appears and I can change the system settings, then a screen comes up about RAID configuration (no idea what this is for), then the screen saying that windows previously failed to start with the options of starting in safe mode etc. I choose safe mode, a series of checks displays on the screen, it looks like it's going to boot but it restarts before the windows boot screen. I'm running windows XP, still installed on the hard drive I was previously using. I was hoping that the new configuration would pick up on the existing OS, but something is going wrong somewhere.

Does anyone have any idea what this might be and how I can fix it? Is it more likely to be a hardware fault or some incompatibility between the processors or something? I can't really check which hardware is faulty because I need all three components in together to make it work at all (there is no video out from the motherboard).

Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Hello Beep

Welcome to PC Help Forums

What looks to have happened here is that you have made system wide hardware changes which is stopping it booting.
XP thinks you are trying to install it on a new machine as your new specs differ to ones that it was configured with in the first place.
It thinks your pirating so then refuses to play.
Unless anyone says different it will come down to a new install of XP Beep so you can re-align your new hardware, so to speak.

Thanks for the response. What do you mean by XP Beep? I really need to avoid reinstalling windows if possible as I have several programs (virus software etc) which I don't have backed up executables for. I'm hoping there's some sort of boot disk option which can get windows going without having to lose the operating system.

Sorry I was using an abreviation of your name when I said XP Beep, sorry for the confusion.
What I usually do is save all .exe programs to a folder then back that up when doing a re-install then run them from that.
Things like MS Office etc you will have to re-load when done.
This isn't the first time this type of thing has happened and it won't be the last.
Unless any of the Tech Team has any other ideas then that's the way to go mate.
I'm open to offers on this.

if you have a repair disk i guess u could repair the system, it would probly change the settings to your new board an save your files

It's been a few years since I originally installed XP and I've moved house about 5 times since then, so I'm not sure if I still have the disk.

Could you elaborate on the repair disk option please? If necessary, I can set the pc up to the old configuration temporarily if that'll help.

Thanks for the advice.