Computer boots fine into vista but not 7

[JXY]

So i'm building a computer for my friend from spare parts. Just as a preliminary test, we set up an i7 920 @ stock on a MSI X58 Pro-E motherboard, with 4gb kingston ddr3 @1333mhz, and an old geforce 9600GSO. The rig is running off a Maxpower Vortec 750W psu (overkill, i know - but as i said, spare parts).

We connected one of his notebook harddrives (hitachi 5400rpm 320gb SATA2 i think) with windows 7 installed, but upon the "starting windows" screen it freezes then reboots - indefinitely. Not sure if his is 64-bit or 32, but safe-boot doesn't work either, the computer simply crashes and reboots when loading the files.

Curious, I connected one of my notebook's drives (seagate 160gb SATA2 5400rpm) with windows vista 32-bit installed. The computer booted fine, and after various cpu and gpu stress tests I concluded that the components seem to be working properly and the PSU is not faulty.

I then connected a third notebook drive of mine (not his) that had windows 7 x64 installed, but the exact same crash happened again!

So for some reason, it seems windows vista 32-bit boots fine, but both drives with windows 7 x64-bit crashes indefinitely on boot.

Any ideas?

[JJ 3000]

Curious, I connected one of my notebook's drives (seagate 160gb SATA2 5400rpm) with windows vista 32-bit installed. The computer booted fine

I'm surprised that worked. You're not supposed to be able to do that. You didn't get any error messages?

[hartbeatmr]

Good afternoon JXY and welcome to CH

Here is a little info that may help you some just in case you don't know

The laptop HD that you plugged in when it froze that had windows on it. It is possible that the laptop BIOS was set to ACHI instead of IDE and then the desktop BIOS is set to IDE mode and when you tried to start it that would just stop and wouldn't be able to go any further (BSOD). The settings I am talking about is for the HD just like a lot of aftermarket like your MSI 

If you go into the MSI BIOS and once you are in there look around for drive settings there should be  something like "IDE or SATA mode" that can affect the way the PC boots the HD that you were testing with.

This would also hold true for older IDE HD's. If the HD jumper is set with "no jumper" so it is master and the OS is installed then say later on you decide add another HD so you have to put a jumper in the master HD and then you try to start the PC in most cases the PC will not start up. But the jumper setting varies from HD manufacture and date of the HD was made.   

Sorry i can't remember it exactly on that setting but any who if the OS was installed as sata mode or if the OS was installed in IDE mode for the OS this does make a difference. All thou Windows 7 is better than XP 99% of the time if you have a PC set up with windows and then you transfer that HD to another PC it will blue screen and not run.

But just in-case you don't now if you set up a PC with windows 7 if you are using a 32 bit OS then use 32 drivers and the same holds true for 64 bit.

Hopefully this does help you under stand a little better about how the PC will start up.       

[JXY]

Thanks for the responses guys. Yeah i was thinking along the same lines as you hartbeatmr, except digging through the BIOS i just couldn't find drive settings that allowed me to switch from IDE to AHCI or whatnot. I'll keep looking, but i'm almost positive there isn't such an option.

You didn't get any error messages?

Nope, it just booted as you'd expect it to. Strange, isn't it?

[JXY]

The only BIOS setting that i found was for RAID arrays, with three options: IDE, RAID and AHCI. I changed it from IDE to AHCI not thinking it was relevant (since i'm not running a RAID array), but it worked! i've now booted into the windows 7 disk.....strange...very strange....

Thanks Hartbeatmr and JJ3000, i really do appreciate the help.

[mountainLion]

Sounds like you might have a hardware driver issue. Have you tried this: install a fresh copy of Win 7 from MS DVD. This is a very generic OS without any hardware specific drivers, it should boot up without problem although the display might look funny and your hardware might not work yet, then go to device manager to find out what devices need driver, your first thing to do is to find out what network driver you need if the Win 7 generic network driver does not work for your network card or onboard network. once you get on the net, you can search for individual driver for your specific hardware such as audio, video wifi printer etc. If you are lucky, Win7 might even find it for you.

[patio]

He solved it if you re-read his Post...