New Motherboard probs

All the sudden on day my computer (XP) wouldn't boot. SO I thought I had a bad harddrive (I only had one in the system) SO I bought a new one. Replaced the old one, tried installing XP, of course I COULD NOT because I have the upgrade version of XP and it would not install without seeing an old windows install. (and I valled microsoft, spent 15 minutes on hold, spoke to someone reminding me og a former KGB agent (you know my name address, what does my XP disk look like, what is on it, pictures everything, checked my phone number against some "records" etc, THEN put me on hold for the tech support people, waited 1 hour 15 minutes, of course it was NOT a toll free number, I guess microsoft can't afford such a luxury!!) SO I put BOTH drives in, the old "bad" one as the master and the NEW blank one as the slave. SO then I was able to install XP on the new drive. OK sometime during this process I felt maybe my HDD controller on the motherboard died, so I bought a new motherboard too (from a P4ITA with 1.2 P4 to a soyo dragon 400 with AMD XP 2400) ANYWAY I finally got the thing to kind of work. STILL I could NOT boot from the old XP installation, on the old drive, of course booting from the new insall worked, AND I could look at the old drive no prob, so I guess it is ok! Well then I started having problems with the audio, it as like some weird digital echo or studder, really weird, and would affect anything running, not just audio. WELL I looked at the task manager process and there was some process dllhost or some other such thing that would set there doing NOTHING THEN all the sudden spike for a few seconds using 99% of the CPU. SO I stopped that process. Well it seemed to be ok, no more studder or funny anything. The next time I turned the PC on I could not get my LAN to work, before it was FINE! SO maybe I screwed something up (OBVIOUSLY!!!) SO I tried reinstall XP (on that new drive) and everything, nothing works. Looking at the network connection and status of the LAN (built into the MB) it says it is ok, but whenever I launch IE it can't connect, no network connection. I did ALL the network troubleshooting (all of the measley FIVE steps that they suggest!) Installed the driver provided by the MB manufacture, I guess every obvious things the AVERAGE consumer would do.
OK so I have a system with 2 hard drive, 2 XP installations, ONE allows me to boot, the other doesn't. I can't remove the OLD drive, XP has a fit, AND I can't get the damn LAN to work! I ordered Mandrake Linux, is that going to help? Or is my level of computer hell too deep?? (OK so if anyone reads this and thinks "this guy doesn't know what the hell he is doing" you're right I know that, so don't tell me.)

OH I also have seen that NTLDR not present stuff when going through the booting problems. SO maybe it is the MBR related? WELL MY MAIN problem NOW is the LAN! Thanks!

I've had problems like that before, when you're missing NTLDR I found the easiest ways to fix are either: Boot system with the XP CD in drive and tell it to repair installation, or just plain format and reinstall man, if you're still having problems the only thing I can think of is resetting Bios to default settings. I've had strange issues with IDE drives that were resolved after defaulting, then upon a successul installation, setting Bios back to the settings you prefer. I've never been able to fix NTLDR issues with any fixboot or MBR utilities. About the networking thing, if it doesn't work after trying that reset your cable modem, if you have DSL I have no idea, I don't think they have reset options. I do know that in the command prompt (Start, Run, "cmd" in WinXP and 2k), you can "ipconfig /release all" then "ipconfig /renew all." You might try that.

~Davatar

this is a problem with your anti virus, mcafee or pc cillin
http://ecusthelp.mcafee.com/cgi-bin...I0MCZwX3NlYXJja<br%20/>%20F90ZXh0PU5UIE9uLUFjY2VzcyBTY2FubmVyIHNlcnZpY2UgZXJ<br%20/>yb3ImcF9wYWdlPTE*&p_li=
this link is intended for pc cillin but apply it to mcafee and you should be fine.