XP is frustrating me !!

Hello Guys,

I am having problems with installing windows XP on my Computer. First, when i try to boot my computer from the CD, I dont see the phrase "Press any key to boot from CD......", which i used to see last time when I installed a fresh copy of xp on my computer.

Second, after booting from CD and after setup loads the files on my pc and after hitting "Enter" to install the xp. I get the message, "Setup did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer."

Even though the hard drive is plugged in. It is not SATA drive. I don't know may be i have problem with my BIOS. i even took the CMOS out and reset the settings and then loaded defult settings. if i go to my AMIBIOS setup, under Standard CMOS setup its reads as:

pri master: not installed
pri slave: CD ROM
sec master: not installed
sec slave: not installed

Under IDE HDD AUTO DETECTION it reads the same as well. Please help as it frustrates me sooo much now !!!

Thanks for your time reading all this !!

 

The reason you don't see "Press any key to boot from CD...." is because when you boot to the XP CD, it checks to see if there's a formatted hard drive in the PC. If the drive is not formatted, or it does not see a drive, it immediately boots the CD. Obviously, since the BIOS does not see the hard drive either, it has either completely failed, or is not connected correctly. First, unplug the power cord from the PC. Open it up and check the cabling (data and power) for the CD and hard drive. If the hard drive and CD are sharing the same data cable, make sure the CD is jumpered to SLAVE (on the back of the CD drive, to the left of the data connection, is a small set of 6 jumpers: it's 2 rows of 3 pins each; put the jumper on the middle 2 pins vertically); jumper the hard drive to MASTER (these settings vary from drive to drive, so check manufacturer's web site). If you have separate cables (one for hard drive, one for CD), then be sure each drive is set for master (on the CD, it would be the 2 pins on the right end of the 6 pin jumper block), and check to be sure that each data cable and power cable is completely and firmly connected, and be sure the hard drive is in the 1st IDE port on the motherboard, and the CD is in the 2nd IDE port. If you have a floppy drive, disconnect it from power and data cables. Once all this is done, power up and go straight to the BIOS. If the hard drive is still not recognized, power down, unplug the power cord again, and use new data cables for the hard drive and CD drive, and use different power connectors from the power supply, and triple check your connections (leave the floppy unplugged). Power up, if the hard drive is still not recognized, power down again, unplug the power cord again, and disconnect the power/data cables from the CD, and plug the hard drive cable in to the 2nd IDE port. Power up and see what happens. If the drive is still not detected, it is probably dead.