PCTech Forums

Yesterday I bought a new motherboard. I have connected to the motherboard a 2.2 GHz pentium 4 processor, 2 hard drives (80 and 120 GB), a dvd player and a DVD/CD re-writer. Everything is showing up in the BIOS ok.

I installed Windows XP (made no changes or installed any software after installing) and rebooted the PC. When I rebooted the PC after the initial P.O.S.T the PC hangs for about 1 - 2 minutes and I get the following error message

Hardware/profile configuration menu

This menu allows you to select a hardware profile when windows is started

If your system is not starting correctly, then you may switch to a previous system configuration, important: system configuration changes made since the last successful start up will be discarded.

Profile 1


If I choose profile 1 (the only choice) windows loads normally.


I tried reformatting again and I still get the same boot up problems.

Right click on My Computer and bring up Properties. Go to the Hardware tab then click on the Hardware Profiles button. Two things to check.

First make sure the Wait Until I Select a Hardware Profile isn't ticked.

Second, click on the Profile 1 (Current) then click the Properties button. Make sure the "Always include this profile as an option when Windows starts" box isn't ticked.

I have tried stripping the PC down to one 120 GB hard drive, floppy disk, processor and one 512k memory stick. I am still getting the same problems.

I have just noticed another problem if I restart the PC.

I downloaded powermax by maxtor to check my hard drives. It creates bootable floppy. If I restart the PC I get an error message that says can not load DOS! any key to retry.

If I do a cold boot of the PC the powermax loads ok. If I then do a Ctrl + Alt + Delete and leave the floppy in I get the error message can not load DOS! any key to retry.

So it seems all my problems happen when I do Start > turn off computer > restart. If I do a cold boot of the PC or shut down the PC completely and on put it on again I do not get the problems?

The start up problems also only occur if I do a restart.

The motherboard, case, power supply and memory are all brand new

Which windows XP are you using? Pro or Home..?

XP Pro

Now did you do the the profile setup that PCguy talked about? And just to make sure I have this right. You can get it to boot up, but it crashes on restart.. Is that right?