Hi all

Here is my specs ;

Gygabyte EP35-DS4 MOBO
Q660 cpu
2GB 800mhz RAM
8800GTS 640mb
160 GB IDE (Boot drive)
250 GB SATA

Its been running fine since january


My older 160GB IDE drive died two nights ago with a corrupted C partition ( the boot one ). So i went and got a seagate 320GB SATA2 drive. I removed

the other drives I had in the system and installed the new one. I put the XP SP2 disk in the IDE DVD drive and setup booted OK. I created a 100GB

(C:\)partition and a ~200GB (e:\) partition and went to format c drive to put xp onto. The partition formatted OK but then setup gave a message saying

it was unable to load XP onto the selected partion. I pointed it at the other partion but same message. I checked I had it plugged in OK and restarted

by removing all partions, and recreating them. No joy.

I restarted computer and now when setup was supposed to boot after POST screen it said this after waiting 10 sec

" Press Any key to boot from CDROM..................Error loading Operating system. "

I have tried all combinations of master slave for the DVD and plugging the SATA drive into all ports, but no joy- I get the same message. I have checked

Bios settings. If I unplug the SATAs and just boot with xp cd it loads into setup no probs, but as soon as I connect any SATA drive it cant find OS.


I really hope its not a MOBO prob stopping comms with ANY drive....



ARRRGGHH


Any help would be really appreciated

I guess that I don't understand why you create two partitions...before attempting to install.

I think that the logical procedure is to create the C: partition and do the install...and worry about additional partitions afterwards.

If you have an OEM version of XP, that could be your problem...try doing as I outline above.

Set the BIOS boot options so that the optical drive is the first boot choice. You can always reset them later to any order you want.

Louis

@Hamlius

Thanks mate

The problem is I cant get setup to boot at all with any drives connected to the MOBO, so I cant access any drives at all, cant get to the partitioning stage 0_0 to redo any partitions.

I do have an OEM copy of xp pro, but why would that cause a problem?

My Bios is set to boot from IDE DVD first.

Im not trying to set up any RAID of AHCI

Since the XP CD boots perfectly with no other drives installed, maybe its time to upgrade my 3yo DVD drive to SATA, cause I think there is some undocumented conflicts on the Gygabyte MOBO stopping them from working together. I have seen quite a few of the same fault listed in other forums, but there hasnt been a fix listed yet. Its possible the the dvd is taking too long to spin up, the BIOS is timing-out the BOOT process. I cant find any settings to change this in the bios tho

Well, maybe I misunderstood (shocking, isn't it) .

First...an OEM version of XP...expects to find a bare hard drive to install XP on. IIRC, if it finds any partitions other than one, it just will not install (I have nothing but OEM versions of XP).

The reasoning? An OEM version of XP is sold/intended only for system builders of some sort, generally for boxmakers large (like Gateway, Dell, etc.) and small (mom/pop shops who put systems together, individuals doing the same, enthusiasts). I know it sounds flimsy, but it's the best rationale I can come up with.

Second...if you are trying to install XP on a SATA drive...or use a SATA drive, you have to install the drivers for it before XP will recognize it and allow use of it. There is no native support for SATA built into XP.

Let's talk about your motherboard, http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mainboard...s4_6.html#sect0 .

You have one IDE MB connection...do you have your optical drive and the IDE drive attached on the same cable?

Or am I totally missing it and you are using a SATA hard drive as your boot drive?

Louis

I did have the IDE HDD (boot) and DVD on the one cable, now i have the dvd only and have tried both cable positions. I have a full copy of XP also- I have just moved house and have to find it again

I dont have a floppy drive to load SATA drivers... but I have seen work arounds , and have access to another copm at home.

I was using the ide hard drive but that died, now i want to used the sata. I dont want to have windoze installed on one big huge partion , cause i never install anything but window and drivers type stuff to the boot drive, and it would be a waste of space. All my other stuff is on another sata 250 GB drive. but there no room on it to create another partion.

Whichever drive you use...I suggest creating a boot partition (for XP and programs) of no more/no less than 20GB...and create any number of other partitions to be used for storage.

Louis