IDE drive, few questions.

[pud]

Ive got my old PC up and running sort of. Its a PIII 500mhz blaster PC. For some stupid reason it wont even post when Ive got the cd drive hooked into the second IDE channel.
I want to wipe the HDD (6gb lol) but I wont be able to re-install windows, and theres no recovery function. I have a windows disc and the product key written down....but I cant get the computer to boot with the cdrom hooked up.
So what I want to maybe do if I can, is put the drive in my current PC, wipe it, and install windows and a couple other little programs....then send it back to the PIII. My current pc is ultra ATA tho, and the IDE channel is being used by my dvdrom.
could I unhook the dvd rom and hook up the HDD, detect it in the BIOS and then load up windows and clear it out?
Also it uses fat32 so would it be worthwhile to reformat if I can?

I like the idea of putting it into my current pc temporarily because Im sure it would install windows alot faster...2GHz vs 500Mhz

so any help appreciated

 

[Atomic Rooster]

That wouldn't be a good idea because during the install, Windows will setup and install the devices for your current setup. It would the have problems starting up on the old system because of the hardware differences.

Is the CDROM jumpered correctly? It should be set as master if it's alone on the secondary IDE slot.

 

[pud]

ooh...yeah its all alone on the secondary channel. Jumpered as master. I dont know whatsup....it'll just sit there black screen.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Do you have the cable connected correctly. With some of the older CD drives, it was easy to attach the cable flipped over the wrong way.

 

[pud]

Do you have the cable connected correctly. With some of the older CD drives, it was easy to attach the cable flipped over the wrong way.

shhhhh!
It doesnt have the little alignment slides on the cable....and when I installed it I set the cable so that the guides would correspond on the same side of the cable...thats where I went wrong I guess. Anyways it works now.
Now how do I wipe the HDD out and re-install windows?

 

[Jk]

pop in your windows cd, go through the setup process and when it asks about partitions delete the old one and make a new one. Then install windows on that new partition.

Also just my .02, xubuntu likes older comps

 

[pud]

dont have the internet on the old beast...could I download xubuntu onto my current pc and then copy it to a disc?
windows xp is just tooo much for this old thing...I dont even have a purpose for it, Im just playing with it..that way I dont roast my good one lol.

Right now Im trying to load clockgen, systool and cpu-z on a cd to intall on the old pc...having issues with that too. New PC reads the disc, old PC doesnt wtf?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

Yup as Jk said, pop in the CD, go through the install process, delete the old partition, create a new one and format it. Install the OS and you're good to go.

 

[pud]

well I put the cd in, it loaded up...then I clicked exit because I had stuff to do.
Now it says it "setup.exe is not a valid win32 application"
Ive tried rebooting with the cd in, Ive rebooted it then inserted the cd again a few times and still nothing.

 

[Atomic Rooster]

You are booting to the CD and not the drive, correct?

"Press any key to boot to CD. . ."