[hmmenator]

Bear with me here, it may be long.Recently I built a PC with parts from newegg. It worked fine until I tried to install Star Wars: Empire at War in Vista. The computer restarted unexpectedly, and I had to reinstall. It worked for about 10 minutes, and then I got a BSOD with no message attached. It must be said that the copy of Empire at War works fine on an XP PC. It restarted and after the Windows Vista bars went across, I got a BSOD saying "MemoryManagement" was the issue. After restarting again and again I got more BSOD with different messages, like "IRQL" errors and rundll and system32 processes not responding. At first I thought it might be a driver error with a network card I tried to install or a power issue, so I unplugged the PCI network card and turned down my fans and started Vista in Safe Mode. I uninstalled the game and tried to reinstall windows to fix the system32 errors, but I got an error message for Vista that restarted the PC. I used a different PC with XP to format the HD. It did not allow me to install vista, because it said it needed NRDTL or something to that effect, and having a spare copy of XP,tried to install it. All was well until after the install it needed to reboot, but after rebooting tried to install it again. I tried this multiple times with different BIOS boot settings to no avail. I tried also to reseat the memory to deal with the IRQL and MemoryManagement errors, but it didn't work. Now my PC is stuck in a continuous restart loop unless there is a Windows disk, in which case it either doesn't run because its missing ntkrnlpa.exe (Vista) or wants to keep installing (XP).Specs:CORSAIR XMS2 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop MemoryVista Home PremiumCreative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound CardCOOLMAX CUG-700B ATX 12V( V.2.2) 700W Power SupplySAMSUNG 18X DVDR DVD Burner with LightScribe and Software Black IDE ModelIntel Core 2 Duo E6600 Conroe 2.4GHz LGA 775 ProcessorEVGA 640-P2-N821-AR GeForce 8800GTS 640MB GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Video CardASUS P5N32-E SLI LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 680i SLI ATX Intel MotherboardLINKSYS WMP54G 32bit PCI2.2 Wireless-G AdapterAntec 900 caseSeagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3320620AS (Perpendicular Recording Technology) 320GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard DriveBy all accounts it ran flawlessly until Empire at War came along. I'd appreciate any help.

[lilxkid24]

im pretty sure this is happening because Star Wars: Empire at War doesn't support windows vista yet.

[hmmenator]

Thats what I figured. The problem is, though, what to do about it now.

[lilxkid24]

try installing it in safe mode?

[hmmenator]

Windows is not installed and refuses to.

[rgreen4]

If the Seagate Barracuda is a retail version it came with an install disc that has Seatools on it. Use that to format the drive. If you can connect the drive to the XP machine, do so and have Seatools install the drive as a data drive. If the Barracuda is an OEM hd and did not come with the Seatools disc, it can be downloaded from the Seagate website.Then put the drive in question back into the new machine and do a full clean install of Vista from scratch. Do not try to do a "restore" or "upgrade" on the Vista drive.You should not have any activation problems if this is the machine that this copy of Vista was activated on previously. By machine, it basically means motherboard and CPU combination.

[hmmenator]

Thanks, I'll try that soon.

[hmmenator]

Thanks rgreen, Seatools ended up formatting the drive as planned and Vista installed properly. Now, though, when I try to install software I get bombarded with the BSOD "IRQLNotLessOrEqual". I am going to run Memtest, but other than that, anyone have any ideas?

[rgreen4]

You've got plenty of memory, so turn of the machine, remove one and reboot and see what it does. Regardless of the reaction, turn the machine off, and swap memory modules and reboot and see the reaction.If you have problems with one, but not the other, you have your source. If you get the same problem with both, we have to explore further.About seatools, I learned that one a long time ago when I was trying to put Windows 2000 on a disc that had XP. Windows doesn't think you should go backwards. That's why you can't format a disc with FAT32 from XP Pro once you have NTFS on it.

[spike]

the memory that error is refering to MIGHT be hard drive storage(which is also considered memory),.....In other words, this could be a bad hard drive

[hmmenator]

Well, I just ran Memtest and it found 3072 errors in 2 passes of the test. What should I do now? I assume it means I have bad RAM, and I tried plugging in 1 at a time and they both get errors, though one only gets about 122.