Initial Start Up- "error loading OS"??

[damagecrab]

THis is my first build so be gentle(heh, heh). Like the title says, when I boot up it goes through the system checks and give me the "error loading OS" message and jut stops. Any suggestions?

[Kiwi]

Originally Posted by damagecrab THis is my first build so be gentle(heh, heh). Like the title says, when I boot up it goes through the system checks and give me the "error loading OS" message and jut stops. Any suggestions?

Since I don't know what you have done, I can't make any suggestions. I have no idea at all how an operating system was set up on the hard drive you are using. I don't know what operating system it is, and I can't even be sure the symptom named involves the hardware in the first place.

You should've included all of that when you started the thread. If this isn't gentle enough, I can't help you better than what I'm telling you. WindowsXP's retail CD has a full complement of tools for preparing a hard drive, but has its problems with larger drives, and with any file system other than NTFS. I think I need to know about the drive, and the formatting, and the install procedures followed.

New hard drives, if purchased in the retail version, come with a CD that handles even more of the formatting than WinXP's tools offer. But the included software doesn't try loading any operating system. That's still up to the OS' CD to do.

[freakitchen]

Kiwi is right, we need more information on this. Are you re-using a harddrive with an OS already installed, or is this a brand new hard drive?

Freakitchen

[damagecrab]

OK, good point. And yes, that's plenty gentle. It's a harddrive that I have reinstalled from another computer. It was the slave drive on my old computer and I then copied everything from the master over to it. I removed it, changed the jumper over to the Master setting and installed it on the new machine (amd sempron 2800, abit nv8-1.02m motherboard). The drive is a Maxtor 200gb. Does that help?

[Panama Red]

I then copied everything from the master over to it

A simple Copy/paste won't create the boot info necessary for the operating system to start. You should have done a Clone or new drive prep with the hard drive manufacturer's software. Plus, moving a hard drive from one pc to another as the boot device most often requires some prep work first. You would need to Uninstall all hardware related to the other mobo including the IDE controller without rebooting after each item is Uninstalled. Then you shut down the old pc, move the hdd to the new pc and attempt to boot with it. The Found New Hardware wizard will appear as it finds drivers for the new mobo hardware. Have your new mobo CD handy so you can load the necessary drivers.

You may be able to save your exisiting situation by booting to the XP CD and doing a Repair/install.