new hard drive problem

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leey2ki

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im tryna install a 120 gig hard drive and a dvd writer on my comp in my room, i put them in and checked on the bios and the hard drive came up as primary master and dvd writer as secondary master. also when i boot up, the hard drive and dvd writer both show and the full hard drive amount shows up.

so i puts my windows xp cd in and start setup and it tells me some of the files couldnt be copied, so i figure my cd is f***ed so i cancelt setup, i put my systems disk in my floppy drive, and hit format c: boom, nothing.... i then go to c: and then type dir to discover c: is registering as my dvd/cd rom

but still my hard drive registers there, but when i boot up i get the windows xp startup screen with the blue block scrolling across before getting a blue error page.

at first i thought i may have static'd the hard drive n shorted it, but if thats the case the hard drive wouldnt register at all on the system or the bios, nore would it boot up windows like that to continue the setup before giving me the blue screen, all connections are connected properly, anybody got any ideas?

P.S this is on a different comp to what im using now, and i have removed my old hard drive and my old cd-rom
 
Enter your BIOS again ... set it to "boot" from CDROM ... pop in your XP CD and re-boot ... you may have to "Press any key to boot to CD" but then the CD will do the rest for you ... just follow the instructions and format your HD to NTFS ... no need to partition.

;)
 
thanks, its formatting now, i dont know why the files wouldnt copy from the cd in the first place it worked on this computer a couple of weeks ago, so i just leave it to format and then continue with the setup as normal, provided it doesnt say it cant copy the files
 
Correct ... let us know if you do have any more problems. :thumb:
 
its copying files now, when the files have copied, on the first restart do i need to go back into bios and take cdrom as first boot drive off n put it back to floppy???? or still keep it the same
 
leey2ki said:
its copying files now, when the files have copied, on the first restart do i need to go back into bios and take cdrom as first boot drive off n put it back to floppy???? or still keep it the same
Click to expand...


personally, i'd leave leave it as it is - you're more likely these days to need to boot from a CD than a floppy - in fact i've moved my floppy to be the last boot device (i have a habit of leaving floppies in the drive!).

but it's really a matter of what suits you. :)
 
sorted now, im on it connected through my main computer..... only problem im having is getting drivers for my on board USB, i cant find my motherboard CD, is there newhere i should search for drivers???
 
Windows XPSP2 should have the latest drivers available for onboard motherboard,

XPSP1 for me doesn't find my USB drivers on my motherboard, but XPSP2 does, so give that a try.

Or on the other hand, if you have got Service Pack 2 Installed, try using windows update to find the drivers.
 
leey2ki said:
sorted now, im on it connected through my main computer..... only problem im having is getting drivers for my on board USB, i cant find my motherboard CD, is there newhere i should search for drivers???
Click to expand...
chrisimrie is correct ... but if you can tell us what the MB is and what other hardware/peripherals there is we will be better armed to help.
 
in all honesty i dont know what the motherboard is,its been in this tower for months but not been used, it was given to me along with the tower, but i am trying the windows method, it seems its just the USB controller and SM bus controller or something like that
 
I wish I had a penny every time I advertise people to download Everest ... I'd be a millionair. :D

Download Everest, install and run it ... it will give you all the information you need on your PC and some. :thumb:
 
Ok, it's a good board ... now that you know what the MB is you can find the MB 'drivers' off the Internet ... I'll let you do that, ;)

You can go back to Everest and you will see under 'Computer/Summary' to the right of the motherboard name it's 'clickable' that will/should take you directly to their site ... make sure you download the correct drivers for your board.

:thumb:
 
Actually skip that (you won't get SP1 anyway) and go for SP2, it has all SP1 included, ... just pop on over to Windows Update Site ... there will be a whole host of stuff to download.

Get all the 'critical' stuff and any 'drivers' the rest can be downloaded if you need it.

:thumb:
 
muckshifter said:
Actually skip that (you won't get SP1 anyway) and go for SP2, it has all SP1 included, ... just pop on over to Windows Update Site ... there will be a whole host of stuff to download.

Get all the 'critical' stuff and any 'drivers' the rest can be downloaded if you need it.

:thumb:
Click to expand...
If you're connected via broadband, then you might as well update with all the updates while you're there.
If, however, like me, you still have dial up, then just get SP2 and the critical updates.
Once SP2 is installed, one of the default settings is auto update, so when windows release another update, your computer should automatically download and install them when you connect to the internet, you can change this option to manual update if you with, but windows will continue to remind you that your pc is potentially not-up-to-date. :)
 
its not letting me download the service pack/s i have a legal version of xp but it wont let me even start to download them, and some of the updates i can get without them wont download either
 
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