Xp Won't install on my WD IDE 160G HDD

I just bought a 160G HDD, on my old pentium 3 since the HDD died. this HDD reads but it won't install xp.

It goes through the firsr part of the setup but when it restarts to do the final installation it just stops at "press any key continue...." an I let it sit and it won't go onto the installation.

I used dariks nuke n boot I did a quick nuke on ithe HDD but its like two partitions that show up n I've nuked both.

Now it doesn't even goto the blue screen to install the first half of the setup...you have to start a nuke quit and restart.

Is this HDD bad or is it a problem with my MB(it was working fine before the HDD died).

I'm going to make two partitions and see if that works one 80G and 72G on the other not sure if this computer can boot a 152Gs.

and also it shows up in the bios the, I've triedto reset the bios order n it doesn't work.

Just tried the two partitions and it doesn't work.

 

Sounds like you are up against the 48-bit LBA problem; if your XP CD has Service Pack 1 or later, you should be able to install it as a single partition if the drive shows as full capacity in the BIOS.

 

I've tried Service pack 2 and 3 nothing works. I don't have service pack 1.
now I'm trying to get the Xp cds to boot into the first half and after it checks the configurations it just a black screen and the cd rom stops reading the cd

 

Probably down to the BIOS then, even though it purports to show the drive as full capacity, it may not be passing the correct info on to the Windows installer.

Can you just create a single, 30GB partion and attempt another install? Maybe, after installation is successful, you can then create a second partition to utilise the full capacity.



*I've seen references that allude to data loss when Windows writes data above the limit of the drive size as seen by the BIOS.* It might be worth filling the 2nd partition to capacity once or twice to test for this, assuming you can get Windows installed.

 

I've been trying to get to the setup to create a smaller partition but it won't boot up

 

Boot and nuke the partitions again? Or is it nuke and boot ... whatever

 

I was doing that for a while on the partitions but I nuked wdc 1600jb-00Fuao this time I think thats the whole drive I'm creating a partition but I see what you mean the 137g limit I saw it in the bios even though the HDD has a 152gs but now I will try to partition the 30g.

 

It works now I created a 30g partition and its installing, but how do I go about using the full 152Gs? Use Acronis? or can I just create another partition with the windows Xp setup.

 

Hmm, I would try making 2 partitions using Windows Disk Managment.

First, make one of 105GB (this will keep the limit within the 137Gb BIOS limit) and test it by filling it with data - eg. copy the contents of a CD/DVD to it and keep dupeing the folder until the partition is full, if you get no file system errors or crashes, you should be ok upto the 137Gb limit.

Next, delete the previous 105Gb partition and create one that uses up the remainder of the 152Gb - then fill it as above and test by using Hibernate a few times - if it fills without error, there's a good chance that it will be fine.