Reinstall continues booting from cd!!

[benjamndiamond]

i had to recently try and clean install XP, and ive gone thru setup about a million times, and it partitions, wipes, etc, and the reboots. next, it restarts the computer, and for a moment, says "setup is starting windows" but wait! then i get taken back to SETUP and the blue screen all over again! can anyone help me from stopping this cycle! i dont touch a key when it reboots, it just always decides on taking back to the setup ive already completed!! thanks!

[DMR]

Give us as much detailed info as possible on your system's hardware (motherboard model, CPU type/speed, RAM, makes/models of video, network, sound, etc. cards and the like). One of those components could be causing a conflict.

[Catweazle]

You must have BIOS setup set to 'Boot from CD-ROM' as 1st boot device, and other boot devices disabled. Set '2nd boot device' to HDD-0 and see if it completes the installation successfully.

[z3phrn]

im having the same problem.. i tried installing windows 2000/95/98/xp home and professional.. same error each time...

specs:
amd athlon 64 2800+
chaintech via k8t800 + vt8237
2*512 pc3200 ram
40 gig seagate 7200 rpm hd
sony cd-rw
random crappy graphics card [the display is fine with the graphics card thats in there right now]

another thing thats bugging me is that when i put in both pieces of ram, it says its freq is 333 mhz, but when i have 1 in at a time, it says its 400mhz [which they both should be]

i thought it would be a ram miscompatibility issue, but i tried with the 2 different types of pc3200 ram i had, and they each didnt work [the mobo says it supports pc3200] the ram works on my amd athlon 2600+, thats one of them: http://shop1.outpost.com/product/3655355 the other one i dont remember the exact specifications, but its the same freq and size.

also i tried fiddling around with the boot options, setting hard drive first, setting it behind cdrom, setting only hard drive... didnt do anything either.

i also tried plugging in a hard drive with windows 2k already installed.. and i got the failed boot device blue screen.

i swapped in new 80 ide cables with the ones they gave me in the mobo, i looked at the jumper settings about 500 times, i tried changing the drive allocation... pretty much everything short of the actual solution

blah...

[z3phrn]

update: finally got it to work, and the solution?

swapped out the ide cable on the hard drive with yet another one... apparently the first 5 ide cables were ALL shit ^^. Sigh...

ill post an update if professional actually installs correctly.

theres still that ram issue tho.. the freq still lists as 333mhz when i boot with the 2*512 pc3200 in... i pretty much waste 40$ if im only getting pc2700 speed when i actually bought pc3200s..

[Catweazle]

z3phrn, you should be asking your questions in a separate topic of their own, rather than 'piggy-backing' them onto someone else's question.

And your RAM SHOULD be set to run at 333MHz. It'll be doing so because BIOS setup is configured to synchronise your RAM speed and your processor's front side bus speed. If you run your RAM at the higher speed, performance on your system will DROP, because your processor will be 'out of sync'.

[z3phrn]

z3phrn, you should be asking your questions in a separate topic of their own, rather than 'piggy-backing' them onto someone else's question.

And your RAM SHOULD be set to run at 333MHz. It'll be doing so because BIOS setup is configured to synchronise your RAM speed and your processor's front side bus speed. If you run your RAM at the higher speed, performance on your system will DROP, because your processor will be 'out of sync'.

thank you for the ram solution.