Installing used hdd's

I am putting together a computer i got from work that needs a new hdd. Well, my brother in law who is an IT guy, gave me about 20 used hdd's, that he claims all still work. The problem i am running into is, some of them have windows 98 still on them, and i am using XP Home ed. Some of the other hdd's i hae tried to use tell me to insert boot disk, and i do so and hit enter, then it says boot disk not found, insert boot disk. Well, i tried my boot disk on the computer, and it works. So what do i need to do to get these other hdd's to work so i can have a new/better computer?

 

Go into bios or set up and set boot from cd first, when it boots, hit any key to boot from cd, only hit the key once. ed

 

The CD that tunered is talking about is your Windows XP install CD. So you'd hook up the hard drive you want to install Windows to (make sure it's on the 1st channel as a master drive if using IDE), you'd boot to your XP install disc, and follow the steps to format and install Windows to the hard drive. If the drives are SATA (Serial ATA), then you may run into problems if they're not already partitioned and/or formatted. If you just want the drives to be used as externals or slaves/backup/data drives, simply hook 'em up to the PC as a slave drive, boot to your Windows desktop, and follow the steps I've posted in this thread to format the drive(s) from within Windows.

Good luck!

 

If you just want to use as a slave drive for increased storage space, install as slave, go to Disk Manager and format. Choose NTFS and do the full instead of the quick format. Will remove EVERYTHING from the drive being formatted.

 

I intead to use this as the master drive. But everytime i insert the XP cd, it says invalid disc. It boots on this cpu, and my sons, so i know its good. I messed around a bit with the hirens boot disc, but didn't find anything helpful on there, unless i'm missing something.

 

If you have another machine that could accept that drive as slave, do it and reformat it to NTFS. Once formatted, install into the machine you intend to use as master . Then try your XP install with a fresh, clean hard drive.

 

This cpu has a scsi drive, and the other already has 2 hdd's in it.

 

ttt.

 

WEll i popped in Hirens boot disc and formatted the drive. At least now, it says booting from cd, then go es to microsoft XXXX something, then ms-dos 7.1, then to the prompt, and just sits there and flashes. So what do i do now?

 

XP boot disc

 

Anyone?!