can't install XP successfully

[kausai]

I have the same problem as posted by jjryms back in 2003 but I did not see the final resolution posted there.

Here is what jjryms posted, I copied and pasted it here,

"Help! I'm having a tough time installing XP Home on a Compaq Presario 7000 (belongs to a friend of mine). His harddrive crashed so I replaced it and I am upgrading his OS (used to be Win ME) on the new drive. XP boots from the CD and copies the setup files to the C: drive then I get the common message that the system needs to restart to complete the installation. The problem is when it restarts, it starts the process from the beginning. I can't see what I'm missing. The installation just keeps cycling, copies setup files the reboots and does it again. Any advise?"

except that this is my own home pc (not my friend's). yup, my HD crashed totally. I bot a new WD 80GB HD and tried to install win XP pro on it and I got into this seemingly strange install loop as described above.

jjryms, are you still here? did u finally fix the problem or get a new pc instead ? :-)

I appreciate any information your could offer.

Thanks.

Kausai.

[Panama Red]

Is the hard drive properly recognized in the bios? Do you have a card reader or any other usb device plugged in? If so remove them (unplug the card reader) until the XP install is completed.

[kausai]

no other usb stuff connected at all.

is the hard drive properly recognized in the BIOS? What do I look for here? when I get into the BIOS setup (by pressing F10 on reboot), should i expect to see Western Digital name in there or it is just plain as hard drive exists?

[Panama Red]

The actual part number of the hard drive should appear. It should show up in the location where it is physically connected, i.e. Primary Master: WD800JB

[kausai]

if it can't detect the hard drive, then how could the install even start? the install was progressing nicely, loading drivers, and copying windows files, and if the system/BIOS can't find the hard drive, where did XP copy the files to?

[Panama Red]

To the memory.

[kausai]

I think it detected the HD because the first time it formatted the HD. else it would not be able to format, right?

[Panama Red]

Very true. Formatting means the hdd was recognized properly. WD hdd's can be a little picky with the jumpering if you're using an ide drive. Is yours ide or sata? How do you have it jumpered?

[glc]

You cannot jumper a WD drive to master unless there is a slave drive present. Recommended jumpering is CS on 80 wire Ultra ATA cables.

[kausai]

Hi All,

The jumper was the culprit. I changed it to Cable Select (originally set to Dual Master!!!) and that change made it (HD) show up in the BIOS. Then I restarted the Win XP install and after some time, it said it needs to restart the system and to remove the disc from the floppy drive. The XP cd was in the CD drive and not the floppy drive. Kind of misleading to me. It should have said 'floppy and CD and DVD drive'.

If you leave the XP cd in the CD drive, and after it restarts, the install would start all over again from the beginning.

Anyway, this time, I removed the disc from the CD drive and it restarted from the hard drive and continued on with the rest of the install.

Thanks to all of you for taking your time to offer me tips and information. Deeply appreciated.

Kausai.