Hard drive help

[Aidan1]

I bought a new hard drive as my previous one had failed

When installing XP it seems to go on a loop - loading files, partitioning the disk and then saying this part of windows xp had been completed successfully. To continue please restart the computer (with a bar down the bottom saying that the computer will automatically restart in .. seconds)

When it restarts (and the CD is still in the drive) it goes through the same loop.

When it restarts (and the cd is not in the drive) it comes up with Operating system not found.


Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Regards


Aidan

 

[thebigdintx]

at the point of restart with the disk in, try it again, and just leave the computer alone for a few minutes. at that point it has loaded the system files and stuff it needs to load windows xp, but has not yet loaded windows xp that's why you get the error no operating system found if you restart it at that point without a disk in it.

 

[Bob94571]

Yeah you should only boot from the CD the first time then when it ask you to "press any key to boot from CD" after that, dont hit anything but leave the CD in.

Also make sure your booting from the right Hard Drive... it may still be on your old one in ur BIOS

 

[Jamxx]

I had this same problem, and what happened was that I had two drives enabled (my RAID array and my single SATA data drive), and since I was installing Windows onto the RAID array, I finally just had to disable the second drive in the BIOS. Once I did that, that didn't happen again. Make sure you have all drives disabled in the BIOS you aren't using to set up Windows.

 

[Aidan1]

Hi there,

Thanks for the help. Tried the first one (leaving the disk in) - it keeps going back to the beginning and starting again.

How do I check that the bios settings are ok? I know how to get into the bios but I am not sure what to look for!

Again thanks for all your help


Regards


Aidan

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Is the hard drive jumpered properly? It should be either set as master or cable select and it should be conneted to the end of the IDE cable.