Windows Install Problem

I just recently re-formatted and re-installed windows on my machine as a clean up. Everything worked fine before. After the whole process was finished, I left my computer sitting for a day or so while I was away. When I came back my display was crazy. There were thick black lines running down it and the colors were off too. I restarted my machine and the same problem came up. I cleared my BIOS to try to fix it - this didn't work. So I re-formatted and re-installed again. The display problem went away but I've got a new one. After the initial formatting and copying of windows setup files from the blue setup screen, I restart the machine with the disk in so it can finish installation but it takes me back to the blue formatting/setup files copying window again. I restarted the machine without the disk and it says it needs a system boot disk. NOTE: when booting up, it takes a long time to scan my IDE drives - and it doesn't see my slave hard disk, but not a big deal. It also takes a couple minutes to verify my DMI pool, and after that's when it takes me back to the blue windows setup screen. I don't know what is going on. My BIOS has been set back to its defaults so I can't think of anything that might be causing this. Perhaps a bad drive? What the heck?

 

How old is this computer and what OS is on it?

I've had similar problems that were solved simply by replacing the CMOS battery. They're only rated for about 5 years lifespan You might give that a try. It's cheap and easy, and can do wonders.

 

I had built the computer about a year and a half ago. I'm running XP Pro.

 

Does your BIOS see all your hard drives and cdrom (CD/CDR/CDRW/DVD/DVDblah) drives?

 

No, it does not see my DVD drive or my slave hard drive. Whatcha thinkin?

 

If BIOS does not see your drives, then your jumper settings on your drives are not setup correctly.