Can only boot in safe mode

I hope one of you wizards out there can help please.
Yesterday i wanted to try and run some really old games for the kids but windows 7 could not run them so i found an old XP disk (genuine) and decided to try it.
I have 5 HDDs (2.3 Tb) in the PC so space was not a problem, it started to load and got as far as "starting window" then the screen went black and the power light on the screen changed from green to orange which normally means no video.
I restarted the PC and it booted as normal right upto loading Desktop it was fine but after about 15 seconds it went black and that is where i stand at the moment.
I have removed all the components from the PC and made sure the contacts were good but it still refuses to boot in normal mode,always loading desktop and then going black.
I then decided to refomat the PC so in went the Windows 7 disk (also genuine) it loads and gets to where i select a disk to load it on.
I get a message the "the disk you have selected does not meet the criteria needed to install this OS" this happens on all the HDDs in the PC so i am now at a loss what to try next.
I am now in safe mode to post this message.
I am running windows 7 ultimate X64 with 12 gb DDR3 ram and a GTX 260 GPU.

any ideas gratefully received.

 

First of all, trying to dual boot(I'm assuming that's what you were trying to accomplish) with an older OS added after is not that easy to do. What is easy is installing a newer OS on it's own partition which then creates a boot menu.

Since you have W7 Ult, you could also use XP Mode, small free no sweat no mess download and install from MS. I'm not sure how well the colours will be but you sure have the power to run it.

I don't think it's hardware related.

 

I imagine you already have tried this . . . but in case you haven't:

If you are able to boot into safe mode, can you try a system restore?

If unable to via Start, etc. in safemode, try booting into safemode with command prompt. Type rstrui.exe at the prompt, and press enter. Give it a bit - I've seen as long as three minutes go by before the restore program opens.

Not real familier with Windows 7 yet - but I do know that when some tries to downgrade from it to an earlier version of windows it causes weird problems . . . maybe that's what the operating system "thought" you were trying to do when you inserted the XP disk.

Ref trying to run the old games, have you thought about using Microsoft Virtual Machine? I use it to run some old Win98 games I have. I think there is non-microsoft product called Virtual Box which does the same thing.

Good luck

 

I have tried restore in safe mode but it says "no restore points created.
I will now try your other suggestion.
thanks

 

After stumbling along in the dark for more than 2 days i managed to boot Ubuntu and found the way to restore MBR so now we are back in business.

thanks for the replies.
Bill

 

Hey, that's great news Bill! I'm glad I was right. Since you do have a full retail of XP, you can load it up in your VMWare if you don't like W7's XP Mode. As I said earlier, you have plenty of horsepower and your games should run perfectly well. (augie crosses fingers):-D