Hi, everyone,

Thanks for the help!  I figured out the problem only about half an hour
after I sent the message.  (I sent another message to the moderator about
not posting the first, but I guess that didn't work.)

Anyway, even though it's embarassing, here's what the problem was:  When I
first set up the hardware, I had the HD as master on the same IDE cable as
the slave CDROM.  No problem, right?  Except that the next day, I moved the
CDROM to another cable as master and left the HD setting the same (forgot to
change it, arrggh!)  Anyway, once I changed the setting to single, the HD
booted fine and everything is now working great.

I know that this is just about as bad as forgetting to turn the power on,
but I learned my lesson from all the wasted time I spent fixing things that
didn't need to be fixed!

Thanks anyway,
Steve B.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Mayer" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2004 9:35 PM
Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] putting together new system, won't boot from HD


> When you did an fdisk to set up the new HD, did you set the "c" drive
> partition as "active"?
> If you boot off a floppy, can you get directory and sub-directory listings
> on the "c" drive? When you get to "c" drive, can you run a simple DOS type
> program off the "c" drive such as chkdsk?
>
> From the diagnostics you have done, it sounds as if the "c" drive is
> functioning OK except it will not boot. Either the partition is not active
> or the system files are missing or not in the correct place on the drive.
In
> either of these cases the drive will function but will not boot (as if it
> was not a primary HD master). If the partition is not active, it is simple
> to fix through fdisk. If the partition is active, then why the system
files
> did not correctly install is an unknown to me.
>
> There may be other causes for your problem for which other members may
have
> answers.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Tom Mayer
>
>
> OK, here's my problem.  I'm putting together a new system and I've gotten
to
> the stage of installing Win XP.  All the hardware seems to test out fine.
I
> go through the process of installation and afterwards it goes right back
and
> starts the installation system again.  It looks like it's not going to the
> HD to boot or the HD is not set up to boot properly.  I've tried setting
up
> the BIOS in all kinds of configurations, from standard floppy, HDD-0,
CDROM
> to all CDROM to all HDD-0 (after installation).  No matter what I try, I
get
> a "boot disk error, insert system disk" if I remove the Win XP CD.  If I
> leave it in, it just goes ahead and launches into Setup again.
>
> I spent an hour with a Microsoft person and they couldn't figure it out
> except that it might be a bad WinXP CD.  So I replaced that, no change.  I
> swapped the CDROM for another, no change.  I've tried going into the
> "repair" stage from the Win XP setup and there are windows files on the
disk
> (brand new Western Digital).  I ran chkdsk and got a message that the
volume
> seems all right, so it didn't run chkdsk.  I forced a run and got a
message
> that there was "one or more errors" in the volume, but I don't know if
> that's important or not in this case.  The HD is detected OK by the BIOS,
> but the system won't boot!
>
> Could it be a defective HD?  It doesn't seem likely to me (Win files are
on
> the HD seemingly) so I haven't gotten a new one.
>
> Anybody know what I should do?
>
> Thanks,
> Steve B.
>
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