First and foremost I am a hardware newbie, and think I’ve made a terrible mistake. I have a new AMD 3600+ processor and an ECS GeForce6100SM-M (1.0) mobo. I’ve read about the overclocking abilities of the 3600+ and thought it was a simple as going into the BIOS and changing the CPU frequency. I changed it from 200 to 270 (I read people going as high as 290) and rebooted. Got an error that my computer would be launched in safe mode and that I needed to go into BIOS and make some corrections. After doing this several times, I am back to the original 200, but I am still getting serious errors. Now I am getting an error stating “verifying DMI pool data”. It then proceeds to “starting acronis loader” (I was using acronis disk director to have multiple operating systems). Then is says “No commands for booting operating system. Press enter to reboot”. I first tried loading “fail safe defaults” in BIOS, then trying clearing my CMOS using the jumper pins. Still getting this error. I pulled the SATA cable from my only HD (a Maxtor 320 gb) and I could boot from my Win XP installation CD. I think this atleast means I didn’t trash my new CPU and MOBO? What’s wrong with my HD? Any help is appreciated !
update ! Jefn over at Universal abit USA Forums - Powered by vBulletin fixed my problem as follows: Hi upandcoming63 - Boot with your Windows XP CD. At the first prompt, enter "R" to go into the Recovery Console. Once there, you'll be presented with a DOS-like screen in your Windows directory. From there type "Fixmbr" to fix the Master Boot Record on your hard drive. If you also trashed the hidden boot files on your system disk, type "Fixboot" to fix them as well. Remove your XP CD and manually reboot your computer (press the Reset button). I've never done this from a system with a SATA system disk, so you may have difficulty with the Recovery Console recognising the hard disk in the first place .. but, if you get to the Windows prompt, you should be able to proceed. Jef