Urgent Help,New install on new drive??

[sunny3]

Hi...please help!...I'm pulling my hair out.

I'm trying to install a new hard drive and fresh install of xp pro.

Have tried 2 now 1 was brand new 80gb other was 120gb.
My motherboard is Gigabyte GA7-dx(about 4 year old)

(my current drive is grinding away and I suspect won't last long)

I've disconnected all other drives except cd,hard drive is ide1 set as master.

I set the bios to boot from cd,it then loads,gives the option to format which I do,then It extracts all the files onto the drive,then a progress bar comes up stating computer will restart in 15 secs etc.

Then it restarts and says -to boot from cd press any key-....then it just hangs?

What am I doing wrong ...?

The drives seems fine because (prior)I formatted them within windows,using old grinding drive(using disk management),and they were recognised/assigned a letter etc.

They just wont load xp on to it!

I've read that some older mo'boards do not support large drives...how can I tell if mine is one of them...?
What can I do ?

Any help appreciated.

 

[Blujacket]

I have a Gigabyte GA-7IXE from March 2000 and its BIOS doesn't recognize hard drives above 32GB. Could flash with a later version for up to 75GB but it's running fine with Win2000 as a spare computer.

 

[sunny3]

I have upgraded the bios to f8 wich is the latest and it still did not work ...
now once the windows set up files have been transfered and it re-starts,it just keeps looping and loading up the windows cdrom and starting setup all over again(I tried taking the cd out after the mesage for re-start).

Is my my only option to change the mo board....?
ifso which would be the best for an amdxp 2200

Thanks.

 

[paparazi]

Do yourself a favour and pull out all additional addon cards, also have the new HDD and one single CDrom on seperate IDE channels, both set to master (once up and running you can add everything else one at a time.
Boot loops!! can be caused by many things, memory is the most common (use just one stick at a time) again adding the extra once you are up and running.
Also go into the bios and set low performing or failsafe settings (so nothing is stressed) again once up and running you can change back.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[sunny3]

I'll give it a try first thing in the morning.
The only thing I didn't do was using single ram stick and unplugging firewire/usb card.

 

[sunny3]

Have tried everything and am getting 1 of 2 things happening....

Keeps looping and secondly once the windows set up files have been transfered and it re-starts and says -to boot from cd press any key-....then it just hangs?

I've ran out of ideas.

 

[temporello]

After the text phase of the setup enter bios and set the first boot device to your HD.
Sounds like boot sequence problem...

 

[sunny3]

I've managed to get the 120gb seagate to boot...by loading up windows on my old drive...then going into computer management/disk management...delete exsisting partition-create new primary partion (with quick format) then right clicking it and setting it "mark as active"...
After that the win cd loaded onto the drive fine.

What if I didn't have xp installed at all...?
Is there any way to "mark as active" and format/set partition using the recovery console...?

Surely that isn't normal...? I thought when the winxp cd does the format it would set it as "active"/create the neccesary partition...?

However the same thing did not work for the 80gb maxtor...it does the norm ie laods the setup files onto the drive,...press any key to load from cd...then"error loading operating system"...?

I'm clutching at straws...the mo board is ata100 and the drive is ata133...shouldn't make a diff...right...?