New motherboard

stanleyA

stanleyA

Hi, great to see there's still an active XP forum.

I dual boot with Debian and keep XP for a couple of old games. It's the Home retail version. When I replaced my motherboard because the old one stopped working, I hoped I would be able to boot XP into safe mode, and install drivers for the new motherboard, but no joy. I reinstalled Debian and it works fine, but am concerned XP might not activate if I reinstall it.

When I select XP from the Grub menu, it doesn't even begin to load, and the computer immediately emits rapid short beeps until I Ctrl+Alt+Del after which it shuts down. I looked up the beep codes and there doesn't seem to be one for seemingly endless rapid short beeps. Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong?

The new motherboard is a :BIOSTAR T-Series TA780GM2+ Ver 6.3 Motherboard AMD AM2+ AM3 Socket DVI VGA.

Thanks
 
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if the pc is oem, then you have to replace the motherboard with the exact same one as the COA is tied to the original for activation purposes.

https://kb.iu.edu/d/afzy

above has beep codes for the various pc manufacturers, but my guess would be that the motherboard might not be compatible with xp, as rapid beeping indicates a hardware issue during post, maybe, :)
 
I built the PC and purchased XP separately, so had always assumed it was the retail version. However now I look at the label that came with the CD closely I see it does in fact say "OEM software", so that'll be the problem. I had never noticed before.

Thanks for your help!
 
This would have nothing to do with booting. Even a cracked or unregged XP will boot to the logon at least. If you can't boot on a new motherboard it will be SATA AHCI .. see if you can change that to IDE , than it shuold boot to a crash or a driver error, from there you reboot in safe mode or load the driver. XP retail or oem will install fine from my experience.
 
Thanks for your response. I had forgotten about XP and SATA. XP is installed on a SATA drive, and worked fine on my old motherboard which is this:
https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/M2N32SLI_DeluxeWireless_Edition/
As I recall, there is something different about SATA on that board which means it will work with XP, although I don't recall what it is.

I looked up the manufacturer's website for my new motherboard, and think I might be out of luck. The choice of software from the drop-down OS menu goes back to Windows '95, but oddly I don't see anything for 32-bit XP.
https://biostar-usa.com/app/en-us/mb/introduction.php?S_ID=344#download

The only settings in the BIOS that I think might be relevant are as follows:
OnChip SATA Type: Native IDE
SATA IDE Combined Mode: Enabled
 
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lockherup, you are correct, I was addressing the activation issue, :) since he has installed before I do not see a problem there, :)
 
Just to let you know, I posted a response after Lockherup's post, which is awaiting moderator approval, presumably as a spam prevention measure due to me being a new member because I included a url.

As I mentioned in the OP, I only keep XP for a couple of old games, which I play rarely, so there's no hurry on my part. :)
 
stanleyA said:
Just to let you know, I posted a response after Lockherup's post, which is awaiting moderator approval, presumably as a spam prevention measure due to me being a new member because I included a url.

As I mentioned in the OP, I only keep XP for a couple of old games, which I play rarely, so there's no hurry on my part. :)
Click to expand...

I don't see your message but I would rerun grub setup , it sounds ok anyway, then turn off AHCI in the bios if it crashed instantly, if it crashes a few seconds later it could be hung up on mup.sys which will require a re install. that board will run XP for sure and it there is a problem with activation it will not come up until the logon screen.
 
It will absolutely 100% run XP but might not exactly boot the old hard drive from the old motherboard as is. Like I said if it hangs up instantly its SATA , if it hangs up after a few seconds it's mup.sys. Go to the bios and select IDE as the hard drive and just to be on the safe side disable the combined mode. and let us know where it breaks and what error.
 
Thanks again. Now I'm getting somewhere. AHCI was already turned off, in that the OnChip SATA Type was set to Native IDE. It has another setting called Legacy IDE which I also tried, but the result was the same; the computer started beeping as soon as I selected Windows from the Grub menu.

I've now discovered that by setting OnChip SATA Type to AHCI, the Windows logo displays briefly, as if it is about to load, then the computer restarts. The next time I tried I got the option to start Windows in Safe Mode.

mup.sys is as far as it gets, as you said.
 
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Here's what I've found. I'll post the links in the next post in case they cause another "awaiting moderator approval" situation.

"It is also important to realize that the problem is not with mup.sys (it has already loaded) - it is what comes after mup.sys that could be the problem (if it is not running chkdsk)."

My options appear to be limited to a full install or a "repair install", but there is no data on the Windows drive that I need to keep, and reinstalling the couple of games would be a simple matter. So I might as well reinstall Windows, unless you have any better suggestions?

Also, I bought the new motherboard on ebay, and it didn't come with any software, which I can presumably find somewhere on the internet.

I have SP2 and SP3 saved on my computer, so can easily install them. I just hope I can still authenticate XP with Microsoft, and update it.
 
more important than the service packs, ensure that you have all your drivers saved to a flash drive also.

if you press F8 when restarting it will give you an advanced boot options menu, be sure to select Disable Automatic Restart, this might enable you to see a blue screen which might give a specific error
 
just re install xp and it should be good to go. I would go with xp pro sp3, not the home edition.

also it sounds like you have debian running so you can just download your drivers and move them over to the other partition. it should activate but if not I'm sure there are ways around that.
 
But I haven't bought XP Pro SP3. :)

The reason I bought my XP Home separately from my computer, was because a friend had originally given me a "cracked" copy of XP Pro, which was what I originally installed and used for a few years. Eventually I decided to take a stand against illegal software, and by which time had realised that XP Home would suffice my needs, so went out and bought my genuine copy.

That said, I still have a "cracked" copy of XP Pro, and particularly as I only use XP with Network Connections disabled nowadays, am keeping it in mind in case I can't get my genuine XP Home to work.

I'm downloading the drivers just now. Will report back when I get round to the next step.
 
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