HELP plz!!!!

[gatordragon]

MSI K9VGM-V Micro-ATX motherboard AM2 Socket
AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor 4200+
eVGA GeForce 8500 GT Video Card Pci-e w/256Mb
2GB (2x1GB) PC2-5300 667MHz DDR2 Desktop DIMMs
WD Caviar® SE16 SATA Hard Drive 320 GB, 3 Gb/s, 16 MB Cache, 7200 RPM
Lite-On Technology 20x DL DVD+/-RW Drive, Internal, SATA

I'm past frustrated. New hard drive and of course it does not let me format it. I put in the Western Digital CD and it boots from it. But then it will not let me format the HD. It will not boot from my XP CD for some unknown reason. How can I get this thing up and running. I'm totally at a loss. I can't format my HD and I can't put an OS on this damn machine. HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ty,

Dragon

[pam123]

Check the bios first, is the hard drive recognized?
If you get an error message when you try to format the hard drive what does it say?
Check the XP cd ( It's one you bought separately not a restore disk?) to see if it will boot in another computer.
You've got the optical first in the boot order?

[flanzig1]

One to note is that AM2 socket systems use pretty much only DDR2 800 ram, so the 667 may or may not work.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by flanzig1 One to note is that AM2 socket systems use pretty much only DDR2 800 ram, so the 667 may or may not work.

According to MSI :

Supports dual channel DDR2 533/667/800, using two 240-pin DDR2 DIMMs.

http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p...VGM-V&class=mb

[gatordragon]

Ok let me know if this helps. When unhook my IDE DVD and put the Lifeguard Tools disk in the SATA DVD it does not load the driver. When I run the tools disk through the IDE drive it loads but then does not see the SATA HDD. I'm wondering if there is a setting in the bios I need to set so my SATA stuff works. I can load in xpbootdisk with my ide drive but not my SATA drive. Its like there not there.

[pam123]

Check this out : http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.php?t=185668

[gatordragon]

Thanks Pam but I can't get my XP disk to boot. I'm looking in my BIOS but not finding anything as far as the SATA is concerned.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by gatordragon Thanks Pam but I can't get my XP disk to boot. I'm looking in my BIOS but not finding anything as far as the SATA is concerned.

I have been trying to find and down load the manual for your motherboard from the MSI site and so far I've had no luck.
I'll try again later but if I still can't do it you'll have to use their on-line support.

[gatordragon]

Pam here is the link for the manual.

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...34&type=manual

Still lost here.

[pam123]

Originally Posted by gatordragon Pam here is the link for the manual. http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?f...34&type=manual Still lost here.

Thanks I've just downloaded it and I'll be reading through it later today.

[pam123]

You are right the manual is spectacularly uninformative.
I do, however have one suggestion, get hold of an IDE optical drive and see if that won't do the trick for you.
If it does you can switch out the optical drives after XP is installed and you've changed the first boot drive to your SATA hard drive.

[gatordragon]

OK Pam here is what i did. I swapped out my SATA stuff and put in all IDE optical and HDD. On boot up it sees my drives but it will not boot to the XP CD but doe boot from the WesternDigital CD. When I tried to boot to my Win XP CD I get "NTLDR is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+
del to restart. I don't under stand why it does not go to the CD. I can't even get to the C:
drive it says its not here. Yet it shows up on boot up. I try to get to I386/winnt but its says no swap file. I cannot get to HDD. any ideas.

Thanks Tom

[pam123]

It's really beginning to look like you have a motherboard problem ( more specifically a problem with the bios on the board.).
Read through this : http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm but do not try flashing the bios, that will void your motherboard's warranty.
It's time now to file a report with MSI tech support and. depending on where you bought the board, start the process for an RMA number.

[mbiggs]

I've got 667 in my AM2 socket proc. No qualms. ValueSelect 1gb x 2