boot issues with new build

[dandimmitt]

ok i've got a soltek k8tpro 939 mobo with a amd athlon 64 3500+ cpu, and two gigs of memory. the problems is that it won't boot.
it goes very slowly though the post routine, and then says "boot from cd" and then "boot failure please insert disk and press enter"
I have installed windows about five times and at the end of the setup up it boots and goes back to the same thing of asking for a cd. I know that the os is installed on the hard drive because on subsequent installs, setup announces that there is already an os present on the disk, so it seem like all i have to do is to get it to boot off of the hd. I have been into bios and set the boot order to floppy, cdrom, hdd. i even tried to set it as floppy , hdd, hdd, but still it tried to boot on the cd.
any suggestions?
dan

[Catweazle]

Hi dandimmit,

I've had a look at your motherboard manual, and in addition to the 'Boot order' setting there is also another setting where you choose 'hard drive priority'. It's on the Advanced Menu, and its described on page 59 of your motherboard manual. If you have this set incorrectly, when your system is trying to boot from hard drive, it won't find the right one ;)

[dandimmitt]

thanks for your response
I went through the bios again and reset tehr priority parameter just to make sure, and then tried to reboot with the same result. I have also tried to direct the computer to boot from the hd by going into the boot menu and selecting hdd, again with the same result.
also i have selected quick post in bios setup and still it continues to take about a half an hour to post(which is very frustrating). It seems like the computer is disregarding parameters set in bios.

?????

[dandimmitt]

also:
i had to disable the sata and promise options, because it was trying to detect an array.
It has a single wd 160 eide hd. after changing those parameters, it stopped looking for the array, so the computer at least acknowledged that change.

[Catweazle]

If you installed Windows with the SATA and RAID options enabled in BIOS, your system is likely to be having all sorts of confusion looking for them when it starts up. I'd be installing fresh with those options disbaled, and the motherboard configured for only IDE drives. You should not need to install RAID drivers during the installation either, if you are not actually using the feature.

[dandimmitt]

I have tried to install windows a couple of times since the promise and sata raid were disabled, with the same result. basically i think you are right that the comp is confused, i just don't know what to do to straighten it out. I'll try another install and see what happens. Is there a way to erase the boot record and start over? since disabling the raid functions, i have done a complete format of the hard drive, and reinstallled windows, again with the same result.

[Catweazle]

Yep. When you get to the section in the installation troutine where you are asked which partition to install Windows to, choose to delete the existing system Partition(s) and create a new one in its place. Install Windows to that, and all should be well.

[dandimmitt]

Yep. When you get to the section in the installation troutine where you are asked which partition to install Windows to, choose to delete the existing system Partition(s) and create a new one in its place. Install Windows to that, and all should be well.

ok did that. same result
very long post routine, detects ide devices, shows a llistingof primary andsecondary devices, shows the pci device listing andtehn says
"verifying dmi pool data......"
"boot from cd :"
andthen after a pause the screen reads:
"disk failure, insert system disk and press enter"

This was after choosing to delete the existing partition and doing a full format.
It went through the normal thingsof copying files etc, and then came back to this same old screen. I guess i could try it again.
any thoughts or suggestions?

[Catweazle]

Does this occur after you've gone through the process of installung Windows, copying Windows files etc, and then the system reboots? Or does it occur before the Windows installation process?

If the former, it could well be that your system is set to only boot from CD during the install. When the reboot occurs, it needs to boot from the hard drive instead, so when your system reboots, go back into BIOS setup, change the boot order to enable it to do so, then Save and Exit. The reboot should occur from the hard drive after that.

[dandimmitt]

well i tried that. i set the boot order to hdd, disabled, and disabled. same result.
I wonder if the prolonged posting has anything to do with what is going on. grasping at straws. Could it be looking for the motherboard driver disc?

[dandimmitt]

I tried to boot the comp on an old 4.3 hard drive with windows 98 first edition on it.
It threw a bunch of errors and went to a startup menu so i selected safe mode and hit enter and it went to a command prompt. first edition should boot on this system right?
at least it was obviously reading the hard drive, but I' not sure what it proves, if anything
any thoughts?

[Catweazle]

How is the hard drive partitioned?

What size partitions do you have, and are they NTFS or FAT32?

[dandimmitt]

teh partition was ntfs and was basically the whole drive - 152 something.
I'm starting to think it must be the drive, since when I put the 4.3 gig on at least it triewd to read the drive. it also posted almost instantaneously, which was a relief after having to wait a half an aour after every tiome i wanted to try something different.
at this point I am debating trying a different drive ( the one on this comp that I am using now. I was reluctant to do that because it has a dynamic disk overlay or whatever the progam is called. drive installation cd has an option to uninstall the overlay, so maybe i can clean it up and using it

[Catweazle]

I'm starting to think that it's the fact you have used a single large partition for your system partition.

Start over, remove the partition on the drive and this time create a smaller partition and install Windoes to that. Having a partition so large is clumsy, inefficient, and can cause problems on some systems.

Best practice is to have a partition of around 10Gb for Windows, a partition of 10 to 40Gb for programs (depending on how many and what you plan to install), and a partition or partitions for data files. Moving the default Program Files and My Documents folders to the partitions of your choice is quite easy. Huge drives like that were not envisaged when Windows XP was developed, and particularly if you are using a first release copy of the OS, recognition problems can occur.

[dandimmitt]

ok
right now i am zeroing out the drive with the wd program, swo i can set up maybe three partitions : 10 jfor the os; 40 for the programs and about 100 for data. it was showing a total of about 152 so that should work

thanks for the input

do all the partitions need to be installled during the setup process or can they be added later? isf so i might just put in the 10 for the os. I don't know how much i will really need for the programs at this point.

[Catweazle]

Do not use the WD program to create your partitions. Use the Windows XP installation routine to do so, and simply create the partition for Windows. You can create further partitions later from within Windows itself.

Note, though, that you can only create or remove partitions using Windows. You cannot resize or merge them - partition management software is needed if you need to do so later.