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After installing an Asus P8P67 LE, my Windows 7 machine starts up, finishing post, starts Windows 7, the Windows 7 emblem appears, a blue screen flashes for an instant and then reboots. It would continue cycling indefinitely if I allowed it.

I have not been able to install any of the drivers that came with the Asus CD as I cannot get into Windows.

Does anyone have any suggestions including how to install the drivers in DOS or otherwise?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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    Is this installing a new motherboard in an already installed Windows 7 system, or a fresh install of Windows 7?
    – Mokubai
    Jun 17, 2011 at 14:20
  • And if it's not a clean installation, what was the OLD motherboard? Do you still have it available? At first blush this sounds like the two boards are using different AHCI drivers, but this is probably as simple as booting up on the old board, deleting the AHCI driver and just using the base MSAHCI driver instead, then moving to the new board. (I'll make an answer once you provide some details)
    – Shinrai
    Jun 17, 2011 at 14:22
  • I'm betting on differing chipsets, in which case, a repair install should fix it.
    – MBraedley
    Jun 17, 2011 at 14:38

4 Answers 4

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Reinstall Windows and it will automatically detect your hardware and use built in drivers. You will at least then be able to boot into windows and install the proper third party drivers. This is a great example of why it is never a good practice to just swap the hard drive when replacing essential components such as the motherboard/processor. Sadly I do not know of a way to do a repair install without first booting into windows 7 (it's not as easy as xp) so make sure you back up your data first (hopefully you have another pc or the old motherboard).

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I would recommend that you put your Windows 7 install disc in the drive and boot your system from that. You then have two options:

  1. A repair install, which may reset enough of the operating system to a default state to allow you to boot and install relevant drivers. This will keep the vast majority of your settings and programs intact. If this does not work then your other option:

  2. A clean install. This should almost certainly work to clear your errors, but will mean that any user data or programs you had are lost. This leads to recovery options:

Prior to a clean install you can download a Linux Live CD (such as Ubuntu) and wander around your existing system and copy any files you want to keep to some kind of external media such as a USB stick or external hard drive.

Swapping motherboards and hoping that the operating system will continue to work is often a fruitless task. Sometimes, if the motherboards are not too different, it will work and you will be able to just install drivers and carry on. If the motherboards are too different then there is often nothing you can do beyond performing a clean install.

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It sounds like you have old drivers installed on your hard drive which you now have plugged in to a new motherboard which has different hardware and the drivers are causing your machine to blue screen and restart.

The easiest option if it's available to you is to just reinstall. Reinstalling doesn't take long nowadays, but as others have mentioned make sure you backup your data! Alternatively, you may be able to run a repair - I'm not certain if a repair will get rid of your junk drivers though.

If you can't reinstall or repair, can you load the computer in safe mode? You might then have to manually uninstall drivers which you think may be causing the issue, it's not the nicest option though.

The easiest and best option, in my opinion, is to format and start over - you don't want to have a PC running with drivers for the wrong hardware/motherboard.

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In general, Windows does not enable "unnecessary" drivers. During installation, it detects the hardware and enables the drivers needed for that harware.

If you are lucky you are victim of this issue - which is one of these drivers cases, but one can can be fixed by either switching the SATA mode in your BIOS settings or booting your windows on different hardware and enabling the driver.

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