problems w xp on new hard drive

[klsears]

Built a new computer with a friend. Posted fine, using an intel board and p4 2.6 processor with WD 120 hd.. used the data life cdrom and partitioned the drive into three sections and went to install the XP OS and a line comes up that says hit any key to boot to the cdrom. I do that and nothing happens but it repeats the question again. The cdrom worked fine to partition the harddrive. I built the same computer with my daughter and tried her windows xp os and came up with the same thing. What could be the problem? I thought making a system boot disk to my windows professional xp would assist but it comes up as a Windows mellinium boot disk with no drivers on it. Does this sound correct. I have the DVD and CDRW jumpered as slave and master and my bios is set at DVDfirst then floppy then harddrive. We though we were home and ready to go when all systems were looking for good. Hope this is just an oversight. Many thanks in advance for reading and responding. Karen

[not important]

Is the CDROM set to "First boot device" in the Bios?

[klsears]

Yes the dvd is set to first boot device and is set as the master with the CDRW as the slave.

[not important]

My apoligies! I reread your post and I se that you stated the DVD was set as ist boot device. You might try to install from the other drive.

[klsears]

I did try placing the copy in the cdrw slave drive but got nowhere. Would trying to re partition and formating the harddrive work?

[jgis19]

Iwould try to undo the 3 partitions,try to install XP on the drive and re-partition after the o/s is installed. XP will only install on C:, I don't know if the partitions you set up are already labeled,but you might try it.

[klsears]

how do I undo the partitions? Can I install windows home edition xp on a drive without any partitions. Or do you mean to use the data file and repartition to one full drive then install the os then use data management to repartition the drive into 3 separate drive?

[jgis19]

With a bare drive you should be able to just insert the XP cd and have bios setup as the cd rom as first boot,it will boot to the XP setup,follow the promts and go from there. I am sorry I am not familar with data management,is this a utility from WD?

[Panama Red]

If you have another computer with a connector available for another HDD, and running XP, just install the two as Cable Select. Then delete the partitions in disk management and reformat to NTFS.

[pam123]

Originally posted by klsears how do I undo the partitions? Can I install windows home edition xp on a drive without any partitions. Or do you mean to use the data file and repartition to one full drive then install the os then use data management to repartition the drive into 3 separate drive?

Remove all the partitions. If that data lifeguard disk will let you do it, then fine.
Otherwise the bootdisk you made will also let you delete partitions ( it doesn't matter what else it can or can't do ), just put the floppy first in the boot order.
When that's done switch back to cd-rom first and XP will give you the option of setting up partitions when it installs.
If you don't want to do that then just install XP on the one large partition and then later, use disk management to divide the hdd as you wish.

[klsears]

well I tried to install the drive using the western digital cdrom, as I mentioned before I partitioned it the first time into 3 logical drives. This time I let it go as one but it would not recognize the OS in the DVD rom drive which as I mentioned is set up as the master. So I wiped the disk clean with zero's using the western digital program. I then inserted the OS into the drive and removed the western digital disk and the OS started to load and format the drive. So a good rule of thumb would be never to use the hard drive disk to partition or install the drive let the windows xp OS do the work. It would save some time. I hope this helps someone out. Thanks for all your input it gets me thinking and I love a challenge. Till next time. Have a great day. Karen

[pam123]

Basic truth.
Glad everything now works.