Windows boot problems

[James.M]

Hello,
im having trouble booting into windows. i have asked on forums and none of the suggestions seem to help. This is the problem.
I installed the HDD and plugged it into the Motherboard.
The HDD jumper is set to Master
I connect the CDROM and plugged it into the Motherboard
The CDROM jumper is set to Cable Select

Turn the system on
Post screen takes quite along time to see the HDD and CDROM
Bother are detected
I insert Windows XP home CD
I install Windows
It restarts and continues to install
I get into Windows Desktop and i install the Motherboard drivers
It asks to be restarted
Restarts and comes up in post i press F1 to continue
it then trys to boot off CD
it says System boot failure please insert system disk
I put the Windows CD in and it trys to install windows again and i cant get past it.
It seems that it doesnt even try to boot from the HDD/

Things iv tried
Set 1st boot device in Bios to HDD-0
2nd to CD ROM
3rd to Floppy

please help
Thanks in advance

[oddjob]

Are you using the cables that came with the HDD and CD-Rom? If you are, that's great; they should be 80-wire cables and nothing to worry about there. Remove the jumper from your HDD. You mentioned in your previous thread that it was a Western Digital HDD, and they are finicky when installed as a single device. If you've tried that and it failed to work, try placing the jumper in the neutral/storage position.

Check this page from the Western Digital site for a diagram.

Also, have you disabled the RAID controller in your BIOS? It's quite possible that the RAID controller is interfering with things, and the comp is looking for a RAID array that doesn't exist.

You can also leave your boot sequence as:
1. CD-Rom
2. Floppy
3. HDD-0
4. Boot Other Device > Disabled (or Enabled, won't really matter)

It's rather unlikely that your boot sequence would be the cause of any problems.

[James.M]

Im using cables that came with the MOBO the cable going to the HDD looks like it has alot more wires than the one going to the CD ROM

where abouts in the Bios would find the RAID controller

[glc]

The hard drive cable is then an 80 wire cable select cable, place the blue end on the controller and the black end on the drive, leave the gray one in the middle unconnected. Set the jumper to CS or remove it.

The CD cable is a standard 40 wire, which *requires* master/slave jumpering, and what's connected where doesn't matter.

[Panama Red]

I had the same problem recently and after rechecking all the cabling and jumpers, I tried a suggestion from someone here to replace the 80 wire cable. That fixed mine. Don't know if yours is the same problem. I'd do as others have suggested first and if the problem persists, try a different 80 wire hdd cable.