Ummm, did you try my suggestions ? Anyway, so you swapped the hdd ... then how did you determine it wasn't the hdd ? If you are just now looking for your XP CD I guess you didn't install XP on this new hdd. Maybe you should also update the problem statement. Is it still about the BIOS resetting the values or about the BSOD ?
my mobo must have been pretty antique. i couldn't get it to freeze at the BSOD through BIOS settings to stop restarting, nor did it have any jumpers. i took out the battery, but no difference. and when i went into dos, the hard drive didn't show up andddd i thought my PSU was a 450W, which was more than enough for my card, but it was a 300W.... O_O not enough power to the components
thats why i always recommend ppl go get a board with onboard video just in case, doesn't hurt right? i have sold 500+ system over the 6 years and frankly, interesting to see, never encounter such issue. .....................maybe just cuz i change my pc every 18 months -(
i'm not fond of on board video.. i mean, if i'm not using the programs i use, sure, but i need a better video card than those supplied on boards. and plus, having two separate components is safer, if one fails, the other isn't affected. ... maybe not in my case.. LOL
UPDATE: I fixed it. It turns out this is what happened. I bought a new graphics card back in december, and when I plugged it in, I was under the impression that my power supply was a 350W power supply, which would have been enough to power everything. But it was a 300W. So it underpowered the HDD, hence, led to a HDD failure.. New HDD is in, xp back on, now time to buy a new PSU. Thanks for all the help anyways.
My god, I would have never guessed that. Maybe the BSOD info would have provided some useful hints. I suggest you turn off the automatic restart for BSOD for next time (hopefully you don't need it though), see: http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/disautorestart.htm Btw, I was not referring to turning off the automatic restart through the BIOS, but in the Windows startup menu when you (repeatedly) press F8 before the Windows startup screen appears.
