help with actualy building

[flint]

Hey guys I was just in here asking for advice on what parts to buy for my new comp. Well the parts have arrived and I put everything together. At first everything was going fine. I turned on my computer and there were no weird noises, it booted up and took me to the BIOS screen. The only change I made in BIOS was to set the CD-ROM as my top priority when booting. I put the Vista cd into the CD-ROM and restarted my comp expecting to format my hard drive and install the operating system soon. However, when the computer restarted I got the message that you receive when you have no hard drive installed (please insert proper storage media yadda yadda yadda...). I am certain that the hard drive is connected correctly and as far as I know everything else is set up correctly as well. I even took the hard drive out of my old computer and slapped it in using the same SATA and power cords to see what would happen and it started up just fine. Seems to me that I have a bad hard drive but I figured I would ask here first before sending it back.

Also, the last time I tried to restart my comp there was a very loud beeping/whirring noise and my computer did not start up. It was very difficult to tell where the noise came from but I think it may have been the power supply. I am going to tighten up everything inside the case and see if that fixes the problem but I thought I might as well ask since I'm already posting in this forum.

Thanks,

flint

[Cricket]

Need more information. What are the complete system specs for this computer? Please list all the parts by brand and model including the power supply.

Is the motherboard in or out of the case?

Have you tested the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic utility yet?

Cricket

[flint]

Oops knew I forgot something

MB ASUS P5K-E P35 775
VGA EVGA 512-P3-N801-AR 8800GT 512M
MEM 2Gx2|CORS TWIN2X4096-6400C4DHX
CPU INTEL|C2Q Q6600 2.40G 775 8M R
HD 250G|ST SATA2 7K ST3250310NS
CASE RAIDMAX|ATX-612WEBP BK 500W RT (removed this power supply)
PSU ANTEC|NEOPOWER 650 BLUE RT
DVD BURN SAMSUNG|SH-S203N SATA LS

I also forgot to mention that everything is detected in BIOS, so my computer knows the hard drive is there.

The motherboard is in the case and I have not tested with the manufacturers diagnostic utility. How do I do that?

[cmichael258]

I have never installed Vista (still happy with XP) but heard that you need a DVD drive to install Vista??

[cmichael258]

Sorry...your specs posted just as I mentioned the need for a DVD drive.

[flint]

Do you think it would be worth a shot with another DVD drive? I have a couple lying around here that I give it a try with.

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by flint I put the Vista cd into the CD-ROM and restarted my comp expecting to format my hard drive and install the operating system soon. However, when the computer restarted I got the message that you receive when you have no hard drive installed (please insert proper storage media yadda yadda yadda...). I am certain that the hard drive is connected correctly and as far as I know everything else is set up correctly as well. I even took the hard drive out of my old computer and slapped it in using the same SATA and power cords to see what would happen and it started up just fine. Seems to me that I have a bad hard drive but I figured I would ask here first before sending it back.

The problem isn't the hard drive, the system isn't seeing the Vista CD/DVD in the DVD drive.

Originally Posted by flint Do you think it would be worth a shot with another DVD drive? I have a couple lying around here that I give it a try with.

Samsung optical drives have a pretty bad reputation where reliability is concerned. I would try a different DVD drive.

Cricket

[flint]

It was the drive, thanks for the help guys.