windows problem

[BigTDogg34]

i built my comp with a help of a friend. the computer boots up fine and i had no problem formatting/installing windows. the problem is that after my computer reboots after windows installation, it does not proceed to the next step. before the windows installation, i had my boot priorities set in this order: cdrom, hdd, floppy. after reboot, i changed it to hdd/cdrom/floppy and i took out my cd so that windows would boot from my hd. when the cd is not in, it'll say "verifying dmi pool data......." and under that it'll say "boot from cd" twice. i tried booting from the hd with the cd in the drive and it'll jsut start the windows format/installation process over again. but if the cd is out, it'll just get stuck at the "boot from cd" screen. i've tried updating my bios and deleting and creating a new partition on my hd..but nothing seems to work. if ANYONE could please can help me out, it would be GREATLY appreciated!

specs:

gigabyte sckt 939 nforce4 ga-k8nf-9 mb
amd athlon 3200+ 2.0 ghz processor
seagate 200gb 7200rpm sata hd
nvidia 6600gt 128 mb pci-e video card
mushkin 2x 512 mb 3200 ddr ram

[sataraid0]

Hmmmm, I believe you are jumping the gun. After windows installs and the computer should automaticly reboot, then you will get a message like, press any key to boot from cd. At that point .....do not press any key.....let it go and it will finish installing windows and will boot right into windows without taking the installation cd out of the drive.

Hope this helps.................................Sterling

[BigTDogg34]

what do you mean by "jumping the gun"? sorry im new to comps
anyway, my computer reboots...but then restarts at the installation process again with the boot cd in. it doesnt say anything about pressing any key to continue. i just hope my hd or mb arent corrupted.

[sataraid0]

Well, normally when you install windows xp, after you tell it what drive to install on etc. it will say wait while setup loads files, then after that it will reboot and it will say windows is starting and the setup cd will start installing all the files and will ask you some questions about date time and so forth, then will say like instaling windows 39 minutes left and will tell you all the different things it is doing and a count down till it finishes. Then normally it just reboots the whole system into windows xp.

Now if yours is doing differently, dont understand it, however, be patient, someone else here may have a better answer for you. It is kinda early in the am right now so give them a chance to wake up. lol

Regards................................Sterling

[amose]

did you try in your BIOS to check the "auto detect " for your HD?

[glc]

Make sure that the bios antivirus is disabled.

[BigTDogg34]

hd is on auto detect. for some reason i couldn't find the antivirus option..if anyone could tell me where it's located? ty.

[BigTDogg34]

bump

[glc]

It doesn't appear that your board has that option.

Are you using WinXP SP1 or SP2 or Win2K SP3 or SP4? If not, you don't have support for drives larger than 137gb.

[BigTDogg34]

bah.....well anyway im using winxp sp2

[gtrasi]

Have u checked if ur Harddrive is detected as Primary Master?

Normally when XP is installing or Bios is "boot from CD" ..XP will say "prss any key to boot from cd"..and when no key is pressed will load from harddrive.

[BigTDogg34]

hd is detected as primary master. i had bios set as cdrom when i installed/formatted winxp. i then changed it to hd after the reboot with the cd out of the drive and it wont go any further than verifiying pool data and still asking me for the boot cd.

[Panama Red]

I think the thing that is confusing many of us is whether you interrupted the XP installation and changed the boot priority. Or did you complete the XP install and go thru the activation process and finally boot to the desktop before you changed the boot priority? If you interrupted the installation, you'll need to change the boot priority back to allow the installation to complete. That would explain why the system is looking for the XP cd yet.

[sataraid0]

Panama Red, I think that is what he is doing? He should not have to go into bios and change boot priority after windows is installed.

................................................Sterling

[BigTDogg34]

ok guys ill explain again as clear as i can.....sorry for all the confusion btw =).

when i first inserted the cd, i entered bios to change the boot priority to cdrom/hd/floppy. i then installed and formatted windows and everything went fine up to that point. at the end of the process, it reboots and so forth. after the reboot, i didnt change the boot priority nor did i take the cd out. at this point, it wont even enter into the desktop screen, it'll begin the formatting process over again since the cd is sitll in the drive(which im sure it shouldnt have done cuz the formatting was done once before). everything i jsut explained was the first try.

the second try, the boot priority was the same. i formatted xp and rebooted again. after the reboot i go into bios and change the boot priority to hd/cdrom/floppy withOUT the cd in the drive. i exit and save and this time it'll stay at the "verifying dmi pool data" and under that, it'll say "boot from cd" twice without even proceeding to the next step. remember that the second try, i didnt not have the cd in the drive.

basically what im saying is that either i have the cd IN the drive and it will ONLY go into the formatting screen and begin the format procees all over again, without even entering the desktop or i DONT have the cd in and it will stay at the "verifying dmi pool data" and "boot from cd" screen.

i've tried many different combinations with the bios boot priorty with the cd in and out of the drive and i still get the same result as what i stated above.

i hope that cleared everything up as that is the best way i can explain what the problem is.

[Panama Red]

Here's my recommendation. Reset the boot priority to floppy/cdrom/hdd, save and exit with the XP cd in the drive. Select new installation. When you get to the point of selecting which partition to install to, delete ALL partitions first. This will effectively wipe the hard drive. Then create a new partition (size of your choice) or just use the entire hard drive as a single partition. Again, your choice. Select Format in NTFS. Do the installation. When XP is finished loading the files, the system will reboot and a message will be displayed to "Press any key to boot from CD...." Do NOT touch the keyboard. Let it boot from the hard drive and complete the installation. When everything is completed, you can set the boot order to whatever you desire. However, changing it is unnecessary.

[BigTDogg34]

i just reformatted they way you said panama, and it didnt work. i left the cd in the drive and it still proceeded to the format screen. also i wasnt asked to "press any key to boot from cd." it just said "boot from cd" and that was it.

im so frustrated....;(

[Panama Red]

Originally Posted by BigTDogg34 im so frustrated....;(

I would be too! I'm at a loss on what is causing this. You said earlier this is XP SP2. Is it a legit cd or a copy? (Hate to even ask that question.)

[BigTDogg34]

sadly....its a copy lol. but i dont see how there would be a problem because my friend used a copy of winxp and it worked fine.

anyway, i'm going to let one of my friend's (not the one who helped me build it) parents take a look at it in a few days since they supposedly know a lot about computers. ill keep you guys posted as to whether they fixed/know what the problem is.

thx for all the suggestions thus far.

[glc]

We can't help with installing a pirated OS.