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. > > Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to > Digest mode - visit our web site: > http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml Do you want to signoff PCBUILD or just change to Digest mode - visit our web site: http://freepctech.com/pcbuild.shtml