BSOD infinite loops after installing Windows 7

Windows 7 on my HP DV2700t (C2D T9300, 4GB RAM, Nvidia 8400M 128mb video, 320GB HD) was running quite nicely until after I installed The Sims 3. After it finished installing, the computer went into a infinite BSOD loop. I tried reinstalling windows 7 again and it always had error message starting with 0x. Occassionally, it would say bootmgr is missing, restart. I then tried with vista and xp discs, and they all ended with some kind of BSOD. The XP installation mentioned something like the BIOS is not ASPI compliant. So what do I do now?

 

Go into your BIOS settings and change your SATA settings from ACHI to "Compatibility Mode". Reboot and see if that works.

 

Umm, I have Phoenix BIOS version F.21, I don't see anything regarding SATA setup.

Btw, I downgraded my BIOS a long time ago to the oldest version in order to fix the fan problem. During the attempted XP installation, it says to press F7 or something. Is it possible for me to bypass the ACPI thing in XP, get into windows, flash my BIOS to the most recent version (if it doesn't fail), and then upgrade from XP to either vista or 7 again?

 

Trying look under integrated or onboard devices in your BIOS. Then see if there's something relating to either ACHI or SATA. If you find ACHI try and change that to compatibility mode.

 

There isn't any option available for me in the BIOS, except for changing adminstrative password, time, language, button sound, virtualization technology, processor c4 state, boot options, hard drive self test, and memory test. Under boot options, I can only change the order of the drives, there isn't any additional option. I feel so fcked up right now.

 

When you reinstalled, did you format the partition again? If not, go ahead and reinstall W7, do a custom install, and then format the partition.

 

Right after my computer went into infinite bsod, I immediately tried to reinstall windows 7. I deleted all the partitions and left with 0 unallocated space, and proceeded with installation, but the process was halted with a BSOD. Afterward I tried to install vista and xp, and they were all halted with BSOD. Now when I try to install windows 7, it just says "BOOTMGR is missing". I am so desperate right now. Is this fixable?

 

Without the stop code, I can't do much more than give you some things to try. A BSOD when trying to install could be a drive problem or maybe a RAM problem. Remove and reinstall the hard drive, the DVD drive, and the memory, then try to install again. You should also check your BIOS and verify the hard drive is set as active; it probably wouldn't hurt to set the BIOS to safe settings, reboot, then go back into the BIOS and set optimum settings. Make sure to write down and/or export your BIOS settings before doing that.

 

I pretty much get a differnt error code 0x something every time I get a BSOD, but I only wrote down two of them:
I get 0x000000A5 (0x00000011, etc) every time I try to install XP. I get this error STOP: c000021a {Fatal System Error} with 0x00000000 (0xc0000001 0x001003c0) when trying to install vista. There are a bunch of other error codes, I'll record them down every time I see a new one now.

 

Microsoft has a KB article for the XP stop code:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314830

 

I've found a few threads on the Vista error, and there are several possibilities: bad power supply, outdated BIOS, overheating video. Earlier I posted about the BIOS, so I would definitely load safe settings, reboot, then load optimal settings. If that doesn't work, check HP and see if there is a BIOS update available - flashing the BIOS might fix whatever is screwed up.

 

One other thing to try: check the memory with memtest:

http://www.memtest.org/

Bad memory was something else that came up during my search. Do the test, and while you're at it, go ahead and reseat the memory, as I posted earlier.

 

I just tried windows 7 again and it says "windows could not retrieve information about disk" and then i tried with vista and it says "Windows Setup could not reinitialize the depolyment engine. To install windows, restart the installation."

 

And right after the vista installation, BSOD occured, saying "system_service_exception" STOP: 0x0000003B (0x00000000C0000005, 0xFFFFF960000C2534, 0xFFFFF98005107890, 0x0000000000000000)

 

If you haven't tried any of my suggestions yet, you should give them a try.

 

Is there anyway for me to reformat the HD so I can start over the installation with a clean slate? I have all my files backed up, I just need to get the operating system working.

 

You already tried to repartition and reformat, and you didn't have any luck, correct?

 

How can I wipe the hard drive clean so that I can put in a brand new copy of windows?

 

You can do it from within the XP/Vista/Win7 installation process. It's different for each one, so just google for XP (or Vista/Win7) clean installation - you should find a Microsoft article for it.

 

I've done memtest and the result is pass. I even tried swapping the memory stick with my other laptop and the result is stil BSOD.

My BIOS is definitely outdated. I downgraded it to fix an on and off fan issue that's been bugging many HP users. I'm trying to flashing it to the newest version but have not found any Phoenix BIOS F.2e BIOS flashing files online. HP website only provides the WinFlash, but I can't use that since I don't have an OS installed. Also, my current BIOS has very limited functions, so I don't have anything that allows me to load safe or optimal settings. Also, here are some BSOD screens I've encountered. http://img31.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=07182009037.jpg when trying to install XP, Vista, and 7. I'm very thankful for all your replies so far.

 

Did you reset your BIOS to default (safe) settings?

 

I did reset the bios to default setting, but I had to change the boot order in order to boot from CD/DVD.

 

Have you scanned your hard drive for errors, and have you removed and reinstalled the hard drive?

 

I removed my laptop hard drive, hooked it up to an external hard drive enclosure, and connected it to my desktop running vista home basic. Used command prompt>diskpart>clean>create partition primary>select partition>active>format fs=NTFS>assign. Four hours later the formatting was done and still BSOD.

 

Four hours to format a drive? That doesn't sound right. BTW - is this a SATA drive or IDE drive? When you try to install XP, do you always get the can't find a drive error?

 

Do you have any kind of intant messaging that I can ask you promptly? I have MSN and AIM, you can add me if you use any. You don't have to if you don't want to, you're already helping me more than you should. Thanks.

 

Send me a PM with your MSN address.

 

Not sure which one it is, but it's a Western Digital Scorpio 320 GB 5400 rpm.

 

With all due respect, that sounds an awful lot like a hard drive that's about to die. I've had three hard drives go belly up on me in my old Sony, and each time I would valiantly try to reinstall the OS several times before finally giving up and replacing the drive.

I haven't gotten all the different BSOD stop codes you're collecting, but that may be because I gave up on trying to install on the drive faster than you have.

I would suggest that you try installing on a different hard drive to see if that takes. If it does, immediately after that you should update the BIOS to the most current version, because right after the hard drive failing, some of those BSODs are almost certainly being caused by a too-old BIOS.

 

Shyster - I'm on IM with the OP right now. I doubt it's the drive. I think I'm close to solving it, and will post again when we're finished.

 

The OP ended up removing 2GB of RAM, and the installation finally worked. Then the OP did a memtest, and found that the removed RAM had quite a few errors.