PC building troubles

[SmallTownBird]

Ok, here's the deal. I'm building a computer with some old parts and some new parts. Here is what I have:
MSI motherboard for Intel processor.
Intel Celeron 1.8ghz
256mb. ram
generic video and audio cards

The motherboard and processor are ones that I had in my old computer but I just upgraded so I'm using them in the computer I'm building for my brother. So here's the problem, I can't any hard drives to work in it except one. The one that does work is a 30gb that came in an eMachines computer, this is also the one I transfer to all the computers I build for myself. It works in my computer and in the one I'm building. I also have an old 2gb, 17gb and a new 40gb Western Digital hard drives. All three of these have fresh installs of MS XP pro that have been tested and will boot to. The only problem is that they will only boot to it if they are the slave drive to my good hard drive. As long as they are hooked up this way I can boot to either hard drives copy of XP. This happens on both motherboard combonations. If I try and just use one of the 3 HD's I get one of two messages: the 2 and 17gb give a "no NRTDL please reboot" message and the other gives a "no system disk or no boot device please insert disk or select boot device and reboot" message. I get these messages on both motherboards. I have tried all the jumper settings and combo's on the HD's. Does anyone have any ideas at all? I'm building this computer for my brothers Christmas gift. Thanks alot.

Preston

 

[SmallTownBird]

By the way, another problem I have is that I can't create boot disks, at least not floppy disks. None of my computers have working floppy drives....

Preston

 

[XT]

well sounds like you could start your computer up with the two 17's and then partion that into 1. then hook up the 40 or 30 gig and your set to go. If you want your hard drives with the o/ses installed to work make sure you flip the other one to slave and those to master or put them on seperate ide channels on your mobo. Mate you need a floppy install one.
Also what type of hard drives are they if there ide hook em up to ide channels if sata make sure u hook em up to sata ports.
What you could do is if you have the o/s cd's take out your mobo battery and resset cmos so nothing on it at all. go threw bios re-set your o/s and partion your hard drives before you get your comp up and running

 

[SmallTownBird]

thanks for the tips. I think I'm going to buy a cheap 3.5 floppy drive and download the ntldr to a boot disk and try that. Everything I've tried and read comes back down to that file not being found. At least I have one working computer to get help on.

Preston

 

[XT]

well installing a floppy is a good idea never know when a boot disk or dos will be needed. If that dont work un assembly everything get a clean hd with nothing on it. Put it together and install the os make its a crappy 95 for now. Then take your other hard drives and install them as secondary's to the first. than switch over to the other hard drive after you made sure it works good as a secondary and use xp then if you want put the other 2 in raid o and have a nice fast computer.