Boot disk won't boot

[ROYP123]

I loaded XP on a clean install and when I insert a cd rom to load another program, the machine reboots. Then it does a scan disk, finds some lost clusters, and saves them, but next time it does the scan disk again.. no more problems. I tried to boot from a floppy, but it just hangs. I tried Powermax to see if it was the HDD and Powermax won't load, since it is on a floppy. I tried to burn it to a cd, and set the cd as first boot, but no go.
The floppy works fine to read and write, but no boot, even when it is the first boot item.
What think?? hard drive? HDD cables ? Floppy ?? floppy cables ?? what would make it not boot from floppy. I got into the problem by using Partition Magic on a friends Win 98 computer so he could load XP as a dual boot. After XP loaded, I tried to use the Partition Magic boot disk to enable Win to boot, but no luck. So I deleted everything and did a clean install of XP, and have these problems. Wish I had not volunteered, but I must fix now. I will start the cables, etc, and take his HDD to my computer to see if it boots from a boot disk. Any iedeas while I work away?? Thanks

[ROYP123]

So, I replaced the HDD cables and the FDD cables, and still no boot. I put the hard drive in my computer and it booted into Powermax, and no problem with the hard drive. . It is late, so tomorrow AM I will replace the floppy, and if it still does not boot, I am stumped. I built him the A7N266-VM about 6 mos ago. My Teac floppy from Newegg with all the other parts was DOA , so I used a spare. Perhaps that is it. If so, don't know why it reads/writes okay, but not boot. Back manana.

[Looneycooney]

hhmm i didn't know xp had a bootdisk :s
normally u just have to boot from cdrom
only win98 worked with bootdisks ...

[ktkendall]

Are you sure the boot floppy is a good one. Once in a while I've seen boot floppies fail if they are write protected..

[ROYP123]

Looneycooney- the boot disk was the one that had Powermax loaded.
KT- yes, I used that floppy on my computer that also has a Maxtor HDD and I used it when I moved his HDD to my machine. The diisk works fine.

[bigandy]

Just set the boot order to your CDROM, and put in the XP CD and let it do its thing. You don't need any boot disks or anything. If you need some help during the install, check out the install guide by Black Viper.