boot up

i have installed a formatted hard drive on the computer. When i start it up it stops after it sees the cd-rom. I do not have a boot disc. I tried to boot up with the windows xp pro disc. Windows xp pro is what is running on this computer. no luck then i changed the bios to boot up from the cd drive but still nothing. I would appreciate any help. Thank you.

 

Can you be a little more specific? Are you trying to boot your operating system (XP Pro) or some CD? What do you mean by 'it stops after it sees the cd-rom'? Is XP installed or not? Is the installed drive a second drive or the primary?

 

the operating system is xp pro and it is already installed. After the hard drive failure, i "put in" a used 40 gig hard drive that had just been formated to remove the info. After installing the hd and the computer is turned on it goes through showing how much memory and it stops after it shows the found cd-rom line. I have an intel i440bx 366 mhz. It used to have a small 6 gig hd. I read that the bios sometimes can't read if hd is too large. There is no way to get the command line or anywhere that i can find. It just stays on the screen i described unless you use the f2 to enter setup. thanks for your help. Hope this is enough info.

 

Are you able to see the new hard disk in the BIOS. I don't know if it is with F2 or DEL you enter your BIOS but if it is not there in the BIOS then you more than likely have a simple hardware problem with maybe jumpers or IDE cable settings etc. There is a good tutorial here

http://freepctech.com/pc/001/installing_ide_devices.shtml

Hope it helps.

 

Also, make sure your BIOS is set to boot from the drive containing the XP installation and not the formatted one. Maybe check your master/slave jumper settings too. Verify all cables are properly connected.