Help! cannot install XP onto 80GB HD!!!

[spookyPC]

Help! (apologies for the double post - not sure which forum this should be in)

Hi,

I have a fairly ordinary home made (by someone else!) PC:

2.4Ghz P4
512MB DDR
Nvidia Geforce 4MX
Ethernet card
Phillips DVD/CDRW Combo Drive ATA MAster
Floppy
Plextor CDRW ATA Slave
MSI Mobo
400W PSU

Originally I had a 60GB HD as a master and a 20GB HD as a slave and was running win98se on it. I then upgraded to XP (Fine) but the 60GB HD failed soon after. I then bought a new 80GB HD (Hitachi Deskstar 80GB UATA 133 - HDS728080PLAT20). This is where my troubles started. I set the BIOS to boot from the CD (more about that later!) so that I could install XP (pro SP2). The PC boots fine, runs through the blue setup screen. Lodas the drivers and then asks me what drive to install on. I chose the c: drive (80GB Hitachi) which I have already partitioned and formatted to FAT32 via a win98se floppy (I use FAT32 becuase I connect the PC to my Mac via ethernet and the MACOS can not write to NTFS). The setup then tells me that its checking my drive. After about 2 minutes it comes up with an error saying that Setup finds that my C drive is corrupted and cannot be repaired! My only option is then to restart my PC! I've now I think tried evrything in my limited knowledge!
I have set the PC up to have the 80GB as the only drive, as MASter, as 15 Logical Heads instead of 16. I have also tried setting up the PC with the 80GB as Master and the 20GB as a slave - again same issue.

There were a couple of times when I had the 80GB Master and 20Gb Slave set up where setup got past the drive checkup and looked like it was going to install XP onto the 80GB but then an error message popped up saying that setup could not create the /windows directory and therefore could not continue.

I also tried setting up with the 20GB as Master and the 80GB as Slave. Setup then gets a little further but again tells me that the C: drive (80GB) is corrupted and it can't continue!
If I set up the PC to have just the 20GB as a Master then it installs XP fine! I also put in an old 12GB and then a new 40GB as Masters (Singl drives) and again XP installed fine.
Curiously, if I set up the PC as I want it (80GB Master and 20GB Slave) and try to install win98se it installs fine onto the 80GB.
I know that it sounds like the HD is bad but I have put the 80GB into a Mac and thoroughly tested it - as well as placed it into a pIII 500 and it passed the drive tests - I even managed to install XP onto this drive in the PIII 500!
I am now tearing my hair out as the maachine clearly installed XP and ran it fine for a month on the old 60GB HD. I really don't know what else to do? Can anyone here offer me any help to try and sort this out?

BTW about the optical drive thing that I mentioned earlier:

the Plextor is the Master on this bus and the Phillips is the Slave (Definitely). The BIOS sees both drives but in the Boot sequence options the only optical drive it says I can boot from is the Plextor. here's where it gets weird. If I set the BIOS to boot from the Plextor and put a CD in the plextor and restart - nothing happens - the PC just sits there. However, If I set the BIOS to boot from the Plextor and put a CD in the Phillips and restart then the PC Boots!!

can anyone help me?

[Panama Red]

Closing this one and leaving the other thread in the Drives forum.