Adding ram crashed Vista

Hi, I consider myself quite knowledgeable when it comes to Windows and PCs in general. I've had my fair share of Windows problems, but today i stumbled upon a problem that I've never seen before.

After adding new RAM (and removing the old RAM) in a PC running windows vista 32-bit it simply refuses to start. Upon booting, after the POST screen, just before the Vista loading screen appears I receive an error.

The first time it displayed an error stating that hiberfil.sys was corrupt or missing, and mentioned something about failing to resume hibernation (which was very strange considering the fact that the computer and been turned off properly as far as I know). This led me to a Windows Memory Diagnostics tool that yielded no result other than that a recent hardware or software change might have caused a problem.

The help messages also told me that I should "insert my windows disk, choose a language, and do a repair". So, seeing as this would probably be a good idea, I restart the computer, put in my Vista disk, and as should, the "Press any key to boot from CD/DVD" message appears. I press a key, and the "Windows is loading files..." progress bar appears.

However, once this finishes, the setup fails to start, and brings me back to the exact same error page as before, but this time saying that the "kernel is missing or corrupt".

***** SUMMARY *****

1) I added new RAM

2) System failed to resume from hibernation (hiberfil.sys missing or corrupt)

3) Vista setup failed to start (kernel missing or corrupt, ntoskrnl.exe)

4) Other attempts to boot Vista => same error as above

***** OTHER INFO *****

Hardware-wise, the system SEEMS to be fine. The BIOS is displaying information correctly and i dont get any POST errors.

***** SPECS *****

Motherboard: ASUS P5VDC-X
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.00GHz
RAM: 2 x 1024 MB Corsair DDR2 PC-5300
Graphics: RADEON 9800 PRO
Harddrive: Seagate ST380815AS IDE


Any ideas?

Thanks for you reply.

I'll try your suggestions as soon as possible!

Since both Vista and the Setup attempt to start, it does seem like this problem could be hardware related, especially memory related. A lack of voltage would certaintly cause some weird stuff to happen.