PC question

[jaybee]

The hard drive on our #1 PC is clearly getting ready to take a dump.  It's become extremely slow, has become noisier, and recently had trouble booting.  Afterward we received messages about the Registry being corrupted and how it had been restored from a log file.  The end is near.

My plan was to do a fresh WinXP install on a new drive, install the programs I want, set the old drive up as a slave, and pull the data files over to the new drive.

The Windows install went well until it tried to restart after completing the install.  At that point I can see the BIOS screen and the XP splash screen, but the screen goes all snowy after that and is completely illegible.  That also occurs when it boots in Safe Mode.  I think it's a video driver problem, probably with the generic driver that Windows installed automatically.  I have the installation disk for the ATI Radeon 9200 video card but was never asked for it.  Installation of another card confirms that it's the video and not Windows itself, but that card has a damaged PC board and the display has dead stripes so I can't leave it in.

Anyone have an idea how I can install the correct driver?  I can't see to get to the Device Manager with the Radeon card installed so I don't think that's an option.

[Fat Cat]

Anyone have an idea how I can install the correct driver?  I can't see to get to the Device Manager with the Radeon card installed so I don't think that's an option.

On Windows XP until the system actually loads the registry it is running on a generic VGA driver that will boot any video card into 256 colors. On a fresh install the graphics drivers are not loaded until the system reboots into full Windows XP so it can detect the card type. At that time you would be prompted for the driver disk. If it is not booting into the startup screen, and you have installed a different card that was able to get past that point then I would suspect that something might be wrong with that card or that the AGP slot on the motherboard might have a problem. You also might try cleaning the pins on the bottom of the video card that stick into the motherboard. They can be cleaned with a pencil eraser.

If you can get your hands on another video card that you know is good then I would try that first.

It is also possible that the boot problems were video related and not hard drive related.