Earlier my computer crashed. Completely out of the blue, it went to the BSOD and then reset.

Now it won't boot up. It gets to the loading screen, flashes a BSOD for less than a second, and reboots. I think the BSOD was KERNEL_INPAGE_DATA_ERROR.

So, I put in the Windows XP disc and try to do a fresh installation. It gets to a page which reads on the bottom:

Examining 78160 MB Disk 0 at Id 2 on bus 0 on viasraid...

and stays there for about 20 minutes. When that finally moves on, it comes to the partition screen. When I try to install Windows XP though, it says:

An error occurred while setup was updating partition information on:
78160 MB Disk 0 at Id 2 on bus 0 on viasraid (MBR).
Setup cannot continue. To quit Setup, press F3.

It's a S-ATA HDD. I've tried unplugging it, changing the cable, taking out the RAM to see if it has anything to do with it, but to no avail.

Help will be greatly appreciated.

Hello Phumfeinz,

Welcome to PCHF.

Sounds like the MBR (Master Boot Record) is corrupt. Just before you are asked which partition you want to install and format on, you are given the chance to delete and the recreate the partition. You will need to do this before formatting. This will give you a clean MBR to start again!

I wish it were that simple. It seems like the partition isn't even there. Instead of the default C:, it shows -:. If I try to delete it, it won't let me. It says:

The partition you selected cannot be deleted.

Then when I go back to the partition page, it's completely gone, and says <Setup cannot access this disk.> so there's nothing left to do but quit.

Phum, do you have a different disk you could test to see if this is a HDD problem or a controller problem on the motherboard? You have already ruled out the possibility of a cable problem by swapping cables yes?

Otherwise, you'll need a spare floppy disk, go to Bootdisk.Com - Free NTFS Boot disk, Boot Disk, Windows boot disk, XP Bootdisk, DOS Bootdisk

Download and run a Windows 98 SE bootdisk, which should come with fdisk. Use it to boot, and at the command prompt, type fdisk and you should have the option to delete your partition from there?

Alternatively, if you have a spare PC you could put your HDD into, you can use a utility to do a low level format on this disk, and return it to factory state: HDD Low Level Format Tool Download - Freeware Download Box

Unfortunately this is the only disk I have. I'll have a look into the Windows 98 thing.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

Hmm, will Windows 98 be able to detect a SATA drive?

I think you may be right about 98 and the sata drive, but the low level format tool mentioned above by madmonkey will work. You could also try this, put the win xp cd in, boot to the recovery console, at the C: prompt type fixmbr .
This should get you going again, if thats the problem.