Am I in the Infinite loop twilight zone?

Asus A7V8X w/amd 2100+ Stock
Thermalright sk 800
512mb corsair pc 3200 memory
hercules game surround fortisimo sound card
ATI aiw 9700 pro Stock (latest omega's)
thermaltake 480 ps
2X 30G maxtor HD raid 0
1 40G IBM deskstar HD
Yamaha 48X12X48 CDRW
TDK 12X8X32 CDRW
Windows XP Home SP1

When I attempt to reboot, it gets to the black windows load screen, when it goes black, instead of going to the blue windows load screen, it reboots. I've tried running chkdsk. I've tried going into safe mode and removing all non microsoft services and all startup programs in msconfig. If you have any suggestions that require using the XP disk, forget it, it's damaged.

Which brings me to another subject. Getting a replacement disk from MS was going to cost me 40 bucks or so. I found an OEM XP pro for $50. No brainer. I know you'll probably recommend a format and fresh install, but can I just install over my home xp?

 

sounds like a driver is not playing nice with you..

Try taking out all cards but the video card and see if it boots.
do a one by one to find out which is the culprit.

 

Thanks Kodo........you were correct. It's the sound card drivers. I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers......no joy. when they're uninstalled it boots right up. As soon as I reinstall, bad news. What's the solution?

 

are you installing the hercules drivers? or the updated crystal audio drivers from the windows update site?

 

The Hercules drivers. I tried the drivers from windows update once but they caused problems. The original drivers I uninstalled were updated drivers from Hercules site. The drivers I've been installing since, are the drivers from the installation disk. Same results with both.

Thanks

 

Wow... Kodo probably knows what to do, but if I were you, I'd go to the Hercules site again and download some older driver. Not neccessarily the oldest, just older than the newest drivers.

 

Actually, I got fed up, pulled the damn card out, and am using the onboard sound. Now, however, none of my usb periphs (which is just about everything) want to work after boot. I have to unplug and plug everyone of them.........sometimes I just wanna chuck the thing out the friggin window. I reinstalled the Via 4in1's hoping................but alas........no joy........any ideas?

 

Your periphrals don't work after reverting to onboard sound? What kind of periphrals are they? I'd be more tempted to say this is a result of playing with the msconfig file... but that's just my guess. Maybe they've been placed in the startup programs at boot time.