new hard drive

i got a new 40 gb hard drive, i am use to formatting or partitioning hard drives from 2k or xp home and pro. i have never started from scratch with a new hard drive. i attacted the new hard drive, put my xp home cd in and it will not boot from my cd, says no operating system found. so i thought well i have to create a partition use a boot disk, which only one i had is win 98, well it started showing me all kinds of selecting to creat a dos this and etc. and i got lost, at this point i have a fat32 100% dos partition i think, i still cant get the xp to boot to load it. i need some step by step directions on how to do this since i never used a dos disk to do this. im pretty good on the new programs but not using does. of do i need a partition program, shoot, i just need some guidance. thanks Carol

 

You need to get into the BIOS by tapping F2 usually, and set the CD-ROM to boot first.

Windows Setup will allow you to create a NTFS partition for the install.

 

i have my cd rom to boot the xp program, it does not go to the xp setup, i just get a message saying no OP installed. i go into f2 all the time to change things, i am very familiar with setup. that is first the thing i done. thanks, any other ideas, and i am new to this forum, i just majorgeeks and buy things from geeks store all time, so i thought this would a good forum to join, and i will not pm or im you or anyone else, i know our post help other people, like me, i have searched but not found answer i understand.

 

Do you get the option "Press any key to boot from CD..." ??

 

no i dont get that option, i even hit enter to try to get it to let me boot from cd, and it wont

 

no, i do not get the message

 

Can you press F2 and get in the BIOS? If so, does it say the CD Drive is set as first boot device? If so, is the CD you have bootable?

 

yes i can press F2 and get into BIOS and yes it is set to boot from cd rom, and yes i have win xp home, pro, 2k, 98se and every program windows has every made, i have tried, xp home, xp pro, 2k, none of others

 

Well my first question I guess is, are the legit copies? If so, which OS do you want installed? Are these CD's bootable?

 

Have you tried booting from another known-good bootable CD-ROM? If yes -- with what result?

 

yes they are legal and yes they are bootable, i think my problem is i dont know dos that well, and i have to do the creating a primary dos partition, i dont know precent to make it, and then what, im lost on the partition without the help of the program. i dont think it will boot to the program on a virgin hard drive. i have a lot of computers, and never had to start from scratched all my disk were used, this is my first new hard drive that was not already loaded. and ty for helping

 

You do not have to have a partition to boot from a CD, windows xp setup will create a partition for you if you do not have one.

You dont have to know anything about DOS to install WindowsXP. All you have to do is boot from the disc and follow the on screen instructions.

Your problem is that your not booting from your disc, but from your hard drive which has nothing on it thats why your getting "Operating System Not Found".

If your BIOS is set for the first boot device as your CD then check your drives because there is a problem.

 

no now that i have not done, i just installed a new dvd/cd burner, i set up another hard drive before this ,used the same computer, i had no problems, the only difference was it was an old hard drive 20 gb that i took out of my dell and i reformatted it and set it up again with the same xp program, it just needed cleaning, i had used it for a long time and it had a lot of junk on it. i put the drive back in the computer im typing on now, i am setting up the other computer for my cousins 12 and 14 so i bought them the new large hd because they store a lot of music on their computer

 

ok, i will go back into setup and make sure that it is all still setup correct, if not i will take out burner and use the old cd rom and see if that works, i dont know what would have made it change, thanks so much

 

Make sure if you have 2 drives the jumpers are set properly, all cables are tight and that you set the CD Drive as first boot device in the BIOS.

If you do have 2 drives you may have to run it twice to find out which one boots.

Good Luck!

 

i just have one drvie, its a combo, dvd/cd, but i just check bios and cd rom is set for first boot, now i am going to check the jumpers, if that dont work, i will wait till tomorrow and use another computer that i know will boot from cd rom, this is fustrating and im tired, that you for helping me, i will be back to this forum, and i love majorgeeks use it all time, and i buy a lot for www. geeks.com, i assum that is you all too. keep up good work, there are a lot of us out here that sure need your knowledge, carol

 

If your drive is installed, cables are tight, jumpers are correct, check your BIOS and make sure that the BIOS is actually seeing the drive.

If it sees it, check your disc in another computer to see if that could be the problem.

 

just an update, i put hard drive in another computer that i knew would boot from cd rom and it booted my xp disk and i was able to load the program on the new hard drive, now i need more help, i have another computer that starts and immediately shuts down, i checked the cpu and it was not tight on the fan, i clean and applied new thermal grease, still same thing, so i put new cpu in it and still does the same, if the cpu overheated could it have messed up something,

 

Glad you got it installed and working.

Yes, it could have toasted your board as well.

 

A heads up, if you try and boot XP on a known good computer, and you begin installing it that xp copy will be set to that pc, if you swap the drive out later you will end up with a BSOD (blue screen of death) and it will be unuseable. To get the potentialy cooked computer up and running try disconnecting everything not on the board, ide cables, vid cards ect. eliminate all possibilities. and if it still dosn't boot swap the chip out, but make sure it is similat, not too fast or too slow. hope this helps

 

by chip you mean cpu??

 

yes the CPU, also make sure the heat sink is going back on the right way, there is often a notch the length of the heatsink that fits over the high point on the ziif socket. this happened to me once with a weird little heatsink and i ended up cookiing a perfectly good athlon because of it.