Vista Will Not load after CPU and Mobo change

I had a Pentium-D that ran as hot as a firecracker. One day the Pentium-D died and I had to replace the CPU. The MoBo only supported the Pentium-D and 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duos which are no longer available, so I decided to replace the Mobo and the CPU. Got A GSI MoBo and an Intel 8400e 3.0 Ghz CPU along with new 2 GB 800 Mhz DDRII Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4 Dual Channel Ram. I got everything installed and started the system and made the necessary changes to the BIOS entries and started Windows Vista, but all I got was a momentary flash of the windows Vistat Install install slider and then the system rebooted in a continuous loop. I have ten accounts on this machine and have a month old file back-up but I can't get to the back-up because it is on a USB drive and the Vista CD Setup routine won't regognize the USB drive. I did everthing that the Vista installer suggested. I ran the Repair Computer rountine and was given a dialogue box that Windows was Successfully Repaired and that I could now restart my computer, which I did, only problem, windows still wouldn't boot and just instantly restarted the computer in a continuous loop. I tired to do a re-install upgrade, but the upgrade option was grayed and I was only given the option of a clean install, obliterating the hundreds of hours invested in creating user accounts, custom destops that are actually functionally organized and everything else like screen resolution and appearance tweeks etc etc. I would like to boot back into the old installation, update drivers to reflect the changes to the system, so that I can just go on as before, the hardware failure was grief enough, without wasting dozens of more hours doing a fresh install. Microsoft won't help unless I agree to a $250.00 per support call per issue support session. And the email and chat require a $59.00 per issue payment as well. I don't feel this is an issue that I should pay Microsoft to provide a solution for as it is really an issue with their install and repair routine. I think the issue is Windows determined that it is now on a different computer than originally installed and that this is a license violation and refuses to start as a rsult. I should be able to get a tech at Microsoft to tell me how to resolve this issue once I present a valid serial number. I can't get my activation number because it's stored in Windows and I can't boot Windows to get any information and Microsoft now wants more that the cost of Windows Vista Ultimate to resolve the issue.



Any suggestions would be very much appreciated.

Thanks, I'm going to change out the motherboard, returning the one I bought because it only support Single Channel DDR 2 800. Others have had problems with this board even though I have read good reviews about it, ECS GF7100PVT-M3. I want dual channel DDR 2 for obvious reasons. Thanks for the reply, I'll change the baord and then to the Start-up Repair again and hopefully get to the login screen.

It does allow a change when we're talking about hardware failure. Since Windows is only installed on one comp, that's all he has to tell MS when he phones in to reactivate. (Provided he has to phone in, he may not have to at all)

I bought an Asus P5E-VM DO Motherboard, e8400 Core Two Duo CPU and 2GB Corsair Matched pair of DDR2-800 SDRAM to run in dual channel mode. Everything is Vista Certified so that I would have the best chance of booting back into my sytem. But I got a reply from MSFT and the tech said that even if I'm able to get Vista to boot again, it won't be stable. I will have to do a fresh install and then copy all my important files over to the new installation, not to mention setting up all the accounts and applying all the custom restrictions and installing all the software again, a one or two day job. I mentioned to the MS forum that Windows had been modular since the roll out of windows NT with its HAL 9000 layer. The HAL was supposed to encapculate all the hardware access routines so that Windows could run on any platform. I guess thqat didn't work out as planned and Windows must do tweeks to all parts of the system for optimization for the hardware it's running under and hence any change to motherboard or CPU requires a re-install. It's kindof like once you get youir system ruinning, pray that nothing ever fails.

Seems to me, if you CPU dies, you shouldn't have to go through all this, you just shouild be able to replace your CPU. But yeh, I did go from an LGA 775 Pentium-D to a LGA 775 e8400 Core 2 Duo and from 184 pin DDR memory to 240 pin DDR2 Dual Channel memory and now I even have the RAID option, only if my WD 320 GB hardive was still available for purchase so I could connect the matching drive in RAID zero. The hard drive is only a year old, which brings me to another issue; what if you configure a RAID 0+1 or 5 system and one hard drive dies and you can no longer purchase a matching dirve? Is you RAID screwed? In the case of the RAID 0+1 would you have to purchse all new drives in the mirror component? In the case of the RAID 5 can you insert the odd ball drive and restore the data from parity?