Mobo install is a nightmare so far...help?

[Chad711]

Went over to my friends place to get the new mobo installed. Just to update you I have 3 HDD, one for Vista, one for XP and then the Slave. Well it's been a headache so far.

mobo: Newegg.com - BIOSTAR TPower I45 LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard - Intel Motherboards

Once we got everything together we tried to fire it up and nothing! So we went over everything make sure it was pugged in correctly. Some how and we both still do not understand why but it just started working????

So now this is where I am stuck. I installed Xp first on the same drive it was on before. Well the ide was not showing up in the bios. Finally we got it to show up then however the disc drive would not read/boot the disc for XP. Well I noticed the ide cable was pretty tight between the HDD and the mobo. We moved it and it finally worked. Well it was very late so I installed XP and just went to bed. I get up today and tried to install Vista. Same ISSUE!

I select to boot from disc, it lets me select the disc drive to boot from disc, I press "ANY KEY TO CONTINUE" and instead of it booting the disc it booted up the old Vista from the previous install. This is exactly what was happening with XP. Instead of it booting the disc it would just boot the old OS installed on the HDD already. Obviously this OS doesn't work for either OSes since it's a new mobo.

I'm lost! Does any one have any idea what is going wrong? Things seem so inconsistent here. One second it works next it doesn't.

The guy that helped me install this (because I have never done this myself) is coming over tonight to look into it further but he is as confused as I am right now.

Edit: sorry if this is confusing at all. I didnt get much sleep and my brain is mush today!

 

[kmote]

Could it be a faulty cable, or maybe not plugged in firmly? What drives are using what interface IDE/SATA?
Is the problem that it will not boot to the optical drive or did I get the wrong end of the stick?

 

[Lexluethar]

Are you wanting to dual boot? If so you need to install both OS's on the same hard drive. That would be your first issue. While you can have two OS's on two separate hard drives to dual boot you will have to use a 3rd party tool to boot the drives. See the boot files found on the MASTER drive dictate what will load. If you only have Vista installed on that MASTER drive it will only boot from that drive.

What you need to do is install XP first on one drive, then Vista second on that same drive. If you wnat each OS to have its own drive you need to google to find boot programs.

Are these IDE or SATA?

 

[Chad711]

We got everything working fine.

Not sure why you said I need to install vista and xp on same HDD? I can change the boot order priority in the bios.

 

[Lexluethar]

Haha, well ya, but if you wanted a boot screen to come up giving you the option (instead of going into the BIOS every time) you would need to install on the same hard drive or use a 3rd party tool.

Glad you got it working. Find out why it was so difficult?

 

[KSoD]

You dont need them on the same hard drive to use a boot loader. I have configured EasyBCD to boot Vista/XP/Linux all on seperate hard drives. It can be done easily.

 

[Lexluethar]

You dont need them on the same hard drive to use a boot loader. I have configured EasyBCD to boot Vista/XP/Linux all on seperate hard drives. It can be done easily.

Using EasyBCD, so you had to use a 3rd party tool. I didn't say it was difficult, just said you'd need a 3rd party tool if you didn't install them on the same drive.

 

[KSoD]

It can be done manually with BCDedit as well. But that is much more difficult to work with that the simplicity of EasyBCD.

 

[Chad711]

Haha, well ya, but if you wanted a boot screen to come up giving you the option (instead of going into the BIOS every time) you would need to install on the same hard drive or use a 3rd party tool.

Glad you got it working. Find out why it was so difficult?

You had to ask didn't you!

usb keyboard, need I say more.

K u can laugh now

LOL

Man with this new mobo I am going to be starting so many new topics. I got audio, OCing and all kinds of questions. I'd like to group them together so I am not spamming up the place but I guess it's best to separate them.

 

[carnageX]

Haha, well ya, but if you wanted a boot screen to come up giving you the option (instead of going into the BIOS every time) you would need to install on the same hard drive or use a 3rd party tool.

Glad you got it working. Find out why it was so difficult?

Don't have to change the boot order everytime though either...can just select the drive from the Boot Device menu too . That's what I've done with XP on its own drive, and Vista/Ubuntu on a separate drive.