Harddrive Issues with WinXP

[JackKnife24]

I'm not sure if this belongs in this forum or the software ones, but I'll post it here anyway.

Okay, so, I recently purchased the following products to upgrade my computer:

- ABIT AN8-V Motherboard - nForce4, HT2000, Dual DDR400, PCI-E, SATA 150 RAID, GbE LAN, Firewall, USB2.0, 6Ch, µGuru, ATX
- AMD ATHLON 64 3000+ (1.8 Ghz, 512KB L2 Cache and dual channel) Venice Core
- CORSAIR VALUE SELECT 1024MB KIT (2X512MB) PC3200 CAS2.5
- Leadtek Winfast PX6600TD Nvidia Geforce 6600 256MB, VGA/TV-OUT/DVI, PCI Express
- StarCase ATX-LN8009-C4 Black Midi tower case, Long body, 400w PSU

They arrived the other day, and I assembled them all fine. I also used my two old CD drives, and my old floppy drive, because there was nothing wrong with them (and I'm on a budget). Anyway, I also planned to use my old harddrive, which is relatively new (few months):

- Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120gb 7200rpm ATA100 - 2MB BUFFER

Because I'm stupid, I figured I wouldn't need to format my harddrive. After attempting to boot the new system with it, and Windows crashing, I figured I'd have to. So, I backed up my stuff onto this computer (a different one), and formatted the drive. However, when I tried to install Windows XP Pro (from the bootable CD), it kept giving me errors about the drive.

Long story short, I have formatted the drive about 6 times in the last two days, and haven't managed to get XP to install on it. I've got different error messages ranging from "NTLDR not found" after the first part of the installation to "Disk read error". And the Win XP installer refused to convert or format my drive to NTFS from FAT at anytime, saying it was corrupt and stuff.

So, you might think my drive is damaged. I thought this too, but figured I'd test it out. So, I put the drive into this computer (a different one) and, successfully, installed Win XP, running on NTFS. I've run scan disk and sh*t, and it reckons the drive is fine.

Case in point, I'm confused. It seems like my new system won't let my harddrive work properly. Could there be some kind of hardware incompatibilty or what? I really don't want to have to buy a new drive, as I only bought that one a few months ago.

Also, the new system seems to be working fine, other than that. I have a bootable version of Knoppix running on it right now.

But, yeah, help please. Thanks.

 

[Freestone]

I suggest that you run some memory diagnostics on your new computer. A memory failure can show up a hard drive corruption.

http://www.memtest86.com/

http://oca.microsoft.com/en/windiag.asp

 

[rvnguy]

JackKnife24,

Double check seating of all components and run mem checks.

While it would be a work around you could take the HD that you installed XP on (other machine) and treat it as a MOBO upgrade with the following instructions:

How to replace the motherboard on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, or Windows 2000

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;824125

rvnguy

"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[JackKnife24]

Thanks for the help guys, but I managed to solve the problem. I just cleared the CMOS memory, and it worked fine. Wish I had of thought of that a few days ago.

Oh well, thanks for posting.