Hard Drive Confusion...

[ShinobiGiri]

I'm trying to install a newly freshly formated 80 gig drive as a primary...and putting in my 60 gig hard drive as my secondary...but when i try to load up windows xp slowly fades in and then the computer winds up restarting. I had gotten the 80 gig drive to work before..but it was messed up before.

Also i am VERY new to moving parts around in a computer..so my Radeon 9800 has this power cord that extends to the hard drives.

Are my ribbons mixed and matched? Are the power ends mixed?

The main error i would get sometimes would be Pri IDE HDD Error Press F1 to Resume. If you want pics please just ask and i'll be glad to take. I've installed windows xp sp2. Maybe it's the motherboard thats acting weird...but that shouldn't be because it was running the hard drive pretty well..please help..ive been up all day working on 3 computers getting a crapload of viruses/malware/spyware/adware on my dads computer. Working with this desktop and doing scanning on my laptop...and sometimes it just won't find a boot record...

[tempus]

Also i am VERY new to moving parts around in a computer..so my Radeon 9800 has this power cord that extends to the hard drives.

Are my ribbons mixed and matched? Are the power ends mixed?

The hard drives should not be sharing a power cord with the video card. maybe you need a better power supply as the one you have may not ne good. Also when you load Windows XP have only 1 drive connected, then after add in the other drive.

[glc]

Each hard drive and the video card should be connected directly to a power supply connector, without using any passthroughs or Y-splitters. If your power supply doesn't have enough connectors, it may not be strong enough to power everything you have.

Provide some system specs, and give us the brand, model, and wattage of the power supply.