Second boot screen says "unable to load operating system"

[damenfoxer]

When I turn on my computer that I am building the second screen that boots up says error loading operating system. I had a friend put XP on it from a different computer b/c I was having problems with loading any operating system on my computer. The hard drive has an operating system on it and it worked on the other computer but when I put it back into mine it shows up as error loading operating system. Is this b/c the motherboard is faulty or my BIOS is messed up??

[HyperTF]

It is not the best idea to install an operating system on one computer and transfer it over as during the install of the Operating System it will check out all the hardware components of that PC and configure and install what it needs to to be able to work. When you move it over it doesn't recognise the hardware... sometimes it is ok, but more often then not it does not like it.

I would format it again and install it on the intended computer... though you mention you were having problems installing the O/S... what was happening? what did you notice?

I wouldn't assume anything is failing on your PC just yet... can you give us any more specs?

[Cricket]

What are the system specs? List the parts by brand and model including the power supply.

You might want to test your RAM with Memtest86+ or DocMemory.

Try replacing the IDE or SATA cable to the hard drive.

Cricket

[damenfoxer]

To cricket and hypertf

SYSTEM SPECS

MSI K8N Neo Platinum MB
Athlon 64 3000+ 754 socket
Radeon 9800 Pro
kingston 1gb RAM
Western Digital 80 gb 8mb cache ATA100
Aspire x-infinity case w/ 350 power supply
Lite-on dvd rw
sony cd-rw
windows 2000 pro (cd) (on the 1.4 gb HD)
windows xp (on the broken HD)
sony 3.5 floppy
I have tested the same ribbon with other devices and it seems to work fine other ribbons don't seem to solve the problem either.

To hypertf

What happened b4 was that when I would try to put in an o/s it wouldn't go to the actual install blue screen. It would check all of the hardware and drivers but wouldn't get to the screen that would ask you if you wanted to setup up windows or not. To check out the HD I put in an older one (which still had windows 95 on it) and installed windows 2000 on it. It work like a charm and installed fully. I also tried to reformat the HD with all the problems
but I couldn't figure out how to get dos to format the c: drive, it always had
(a:\>) as the command screen. After that I reformated it by putting in both HDs and using the old HD to format the newer one. What happened is that one became the c: and the other became and f: (i have 2 cd drives). That didn't seem to solve the orginal problem either.

What me and my friends found out though is that by removing the jumper off of the HD made a huge difference in performance (setting it to master made the comp run ver very slow) We did this one my friend's computer to install xp onto it.

hope this helps

[HyperTF]

I have uploaded Windows98setup disk on to my webspace...download it here
Download Win98StartupDisk here
copy the files only from this zip onto a blank floppy and keep it ready
--------------------------------------------
Take all hard drives out of the computer
Set the one Hard drive you want to format and have as your primary as master
Install it back into the computer
Do not put any other hard drives in... (to make things easier)
Insert the Windows Floppy you just formatted
Start up the pc
The floppy should start to load (if the floppy is enabled to be read as the first boot device)
(While you are waiting...put your Windows XP install CD into your CDROM)
When you reach the command prompt type in fdisk
Follow the screen instructions and delete the partitions
When it's finished reboot the computer and press delete to enter BIOS
Eject the Floppy disk
Change the primary boot device to CDROM and save and exit BIOS
hopefully the CDROM will start to load and commence the install
Ensure you partition and format the drive through the CDROM menu, preferably with NTFS for XP unless you intend to set up a dual boot.
Install Windows (hopefully! )
After Windows has successfully installed shut down set your second hard drive as slave and install it (if you still want to have a slave drive)
Important: remember one thing, it is not allways helpful to have a slave drive with a second OS... better to format it and keep it OS free and just for files (IMO)

Look I have fired that off the top of my head... I only just woke up so I hope it's about right... give it a try and please let me know if it still did not work.
Cheers

[damenfoxer]

I've done all that you have suggested but the same problem keeps occuring. Is this a BIOS problem?

[HyperTF]

Is it an original XP install disk? Could you possibly return it or is it too old?

[damenfoxer]

I think the problem is that I might not have the latest BIOS revision for my motherboard. It might have a hard time reading larger drives. That may be why I was able to install windows on the 1 gb hard drive b/c it was small enough for it run through. This 80 gb drive might be too big for the current version. What do you think?

[Cricket]

I'd try a different power supply.

Cricket

[damenfoxer]

I was thinking about etting a 500 watt ps but I really didn't want to go over my budget. If this doesn't I might try that out