MS-6787 I am installing windows xp on this mobo and when it is done installing the windows xp files, it tells me windows are going to reboot. It hangs on the first boot up screen with the windows logo and the little blue blocks are not moving at all. NB. At this stage i have not entered any product code of any sort. I am frustrated with this process can you help please urgent. I have tried to install RAID drivers and also changing my dvd rom. I have also tried the hard drive on a different mobo and it boots up and continue to install the windows xp files.

Hold the power button until it turns off, then reboot. Try doing a shutdown and see if the problem is solved.

1. Check your BIOS to be sure your computer will boot from a CD. Enter the BIOS setup by pressing the "Delete" or F2 or "F12" key, or as directed at the startup screen, immediately after booting. Set the first boot device to "CDROM" or "DVDROM" instead of "hard drive" if it isn't already.

2. MS-DOS command prompt

Insert the Windows XP installation CD into your CD or DVD drive and restart the computer. When prompted, choose to start from the MS-DOS command prompt with CD support. The MS-DOS command prompt will appear in a moment.

3. Start SMARTDRIVE by typing "SMARTDRV" at the DOS prompt and pressing enter. You don't have to run SMARTDRIVE, but copying the files will be much quicker if you do. The computer will display the DOS prompt again.

4. Enter "CD I386" at the DOS prompt to change to the directory where the setup program starts.

5. Enter "WINNT" at the prompt to start Windows XP setup. The installation program will copy files to your computer and then display a message requesting to reboot.

6. Press the "Enter" key to reboot. The setup program will start again and check that your hard drive format is compatible with Windows XP. If not, it will guide you through partitioning and formatting the drive and then ask you to reboot once more.

7. Press "Enter" to reboot. The computer will restart in Windows XP mode and automatically start the Windows Setup Wizard to detect your hardware and finish the installation.

Excellent motherboard. I've owned two of them, best socket A motherboard ever. Nvidia nforce chipset, soundstorm audio. You can definitely burn the drivers to a disk or pen drive for installation after you've reinstalled windows. Windows xp may even have drivers that will work for the network card. So you may just be able to go to asus's website with that system and install directly to the system. You will know if the network card is working when xp asks to activate, try to activate and it will tell you if you have a network connection or not. I would burn all the drivers and software to a disk though just in case. Downloading the drivers and saving them on a CD is easy. Just download and save the drivers/software to your "my documents folder" when downloading from asus. Then open my computer double click on the cdrw drive or dvdrw drive whichever one you have and drag the files from your documents to the cdrw//dvdrw window. Once you've done this you will see at the top of the window "files ready to be written to cd". At the top in the left column in window you will see "write files to cd". Insert a blank cd-r or cd-rw and click write files to cd. That's it once its finished you can use the cd to install the software. If you have any trouble or questions reply to this and I will be glad to help you. I miss my A7N8X-E I sold mine to my friend 5 years ago and its still running strong and I used it for 2 years before him.

for agp motherboards, you have to install agp mobo drivers, before you install the actual video card drivers.

Did you undertake a "repair" of the XP installation..? You should repair the existing installation using your original install disk But don't use the Repair console option, Go past this option until the install program tells you that it has detected an existing installation and would you like to either repair this installation or re-install from scratch.. Choose the repair option. Once this has completed, you should then install the mainboard drivers and then, go to Windows update and install ALL the required updates. This method ensures that the old mainboard drivers are removed and the new ones, including updates are installed. If this fails for whatever reason, you may have no choice but to undertake a full re-installation of XP including a format of the drive (sorry).. Then, once you have done this, you will need to re-install MS Office again as the repair of XP will overwrite some of the data and DLL files belonging to MS Office..

See if you can enter SAFE MODE. After turning on the power watch the screen and when you first see Starting Windows press the F8 key several times until you see a menu, select Save Mode. If the computer boots to save mode, it's probably just a driver problem.

try to remove any card in your motherboard like modem sound card or lan vard then install it again.. cheer

You can try also to do reformat your hard drive as fresh unallocated one before doing formatting again to install windows. And check your installation disk for scratches.

Fisrt you must Do a search online on how to make a deep uninstall of nvidia drivers.

Then...
Do "deep uninstall" of all ati drivers and programs present in the affected computer computer, remember to remove all ati or powercolor related programs from control panel's add remove utility, including the whole multimedia center. And finally reinstalling the new drivers.

You should have downloaded the most recent catalyst drivers from the power color manufacturer that are available for your card.

Now proceed with the "deep uninstall" following this directions, taken from somewhere on the internet, thanks to the one who wrote them...

1. Go into the Control Panel and under the ADD/REMOVE SOFTWARE icon uninstall the ATI Multimedia software and/or the ATI DVD software.
2. Uninstall the ATI drivers also found in the Add/Remove section. Once removed, it will prompt you to reboot....do so.
3. When returning to windows, the NEW HARDWARE FOUND wizard will come up and will tell you that it has found a new VGA card and will prompt you for drivers. Hit CANCEL!
4. Now, go to START - SEARCH - FOR FILES OR FOLDERS and do a search for all files and folders using the filename ati*.*
This search will normally give you 3 to 4 files found in your c:/windows directory and subdirectories (including the Windows/System directory). Select these files and erase them. Now go to your Recycle Bin and Empty your bin.
5. Next...time to go to your Registry. Go to START -- RUN -- regedit
Here go to key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SYSTEM -- ControlSet001 -- Control -- Video . Here there should be 4 entries. 3 of them are default Windows XP entries and the 4th one is put in by the ATI drivers. Expand each one by one until you see ATI entries. Once found, erase the entire key.
Now repeat the same step above for the ControlSet002 key and the CurrentControlSet Key. Normally, whenever you erase a key in the ControlSet001, XP automatically deletes it in the CurrentControlSet section too. So if the ATI key is not found in the CurrentControlSet section, don't worry about it.
Once all keys are deleted, proceed to the next step.
6. While still in the registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -- SOFTWARE section. Here you should find an ATI Technologies key. Select it and delete it. In that same section, look for an Installed Options key. Expand it and there you should find another ATI Technologies key. Select it and erase it.
7. Still in the registry, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER -- Software and there you should find another ATI technologies key. Select it and erase it. Once all this is done, close the registry. the registry is now clean. Though you might want to even run a registry cleaner, like the one included in the freeware program CCLEANER, it's very good, can be undone and it's safe enough to use it almost blindly.
8. Close all windows and reboot.
9. When in windows after the reboot the NEW HARDWARE FOUND WIZARD will pop up again. Cancel that. Now find the new ATI drivers that you have downloaded and extracted and run the SETUP file. Once complete, reboot and you are DONE!

Go to Windows Explorer Right click C:\ go to properties / Tools / click Error check new box pops up tick small box to fix errors and reboot. On reboot windows will scan disk and fix any errors in system files then restart.
If windows restarts OK problem solved If not
Boot from windows CD and after all drivers loaded windows will ask what you want t do 0Install Repair etc" press the R key for repair and follow instructions from there
Warning until window finishes installing do NOT press any keys when it reboots