Cant install my operating system

[befe]

Hi, i just built a computer with newe parts but i can tinstall Windows on it. I am able to get into the BIOS where my hard drive and my DVD drive are recognized and the system seems to be working well. It also sees all of my memory. The computer does the POST fine but then after a while i get a black screen with a cursor which starts scrolling down and then just stays there. I dont know what to do. Please help me
Thanks

 

[Route44]

Is your Windows XP? And, is your harddrive a SATA? If you you need to have your SATA harddrive as first bootable in your BIOS. See if that helps.

 

[befe]

Isnt the dvd drive supposed to be the first bootable drive, well anyway ill try it thanks

 

[befe]

And yes, its windows xp and both the dvd and hard drive are sata drives. The hard drive is a caviar 250 gb western digital

 

[befe]

Nope, it didnt work, i have tried having both the hard drive and the dvd drive to be thee first bootable devices and none of the options worked

 

[befe]

Is the cd that comes with the mobo supposed to be used after or before installing the os? and if before, how do you use it?

 

[Route44]

The CD that comes with the mobo has the chipset drivers. Yes, you need to load those before installing you OS. Just pop in your CD and follow instructions.

 

[Hexon]

Is your motherboard SATA compatible? Because if not, it definitely won't be able to read your dvd drive or your HDD.
Would you happen to have an IDE HDD lying around the place?

 

[Route44]

To follow up what Hexon wrote, can you list your hardware for us. i.e., motherboard make and model, harddrive make and is it either SATA or IDE, etc.?

 

[AlbertLionheart]

You say you can see both the hard drive and the CD/DVD drive in the BIOS. If this is so, it should not matter if it is PATA or SATA unless you have set up a RAID array in which case it will hang. Make sure there is no RAID setup in place and try again. If in doubt, reset the BIOS to Optimum default and reboot.
Hope this helps.

 

[befe]

My system:
Motherboard, MSI P965 platinum, intel core 2 duo 6420, 2X1 gb patriot extreme ram, evga 7900 gs video card, 500 w power supply, Both the dvd drive and hdd are SATA.
I dont have raid, i disabled it from the BIOS because i used to get an error message that said "detect drives done, no hard drives found" but when i disabled the raid in the bios that went away but still i cant get anything.
I put the mobo cd in the driver and nothing came up, just that same black screen with the cursor that goes down the screen.
Sorry for my essay, im just trying to give you all the details
Thanks

 

[befe]

The hard drive is a 250 gb caviar WD and the dvd drive is a samsung

 

[AlbertLionheart]

First, the mobo CD is no good to you until you have installed the O/S. They are not normally bootable.
I would consider resetting the BIOS by shorting it out on the motherboard - tbere should be a section on this in the manual. I still think there is an issue with the SATA/RAID setup so if I am right this should clear it. Did you change any of the SATA/RAID settings at all?

 

[mailpup]

Because you have a SATA hard drive, you will need to install the SATA/RAID drivers. Even if you do not plan to use RAID, the drivers may be called RAID or SATA/RAID drivers. It will do no harm to install extra drivers if in doubt.

Set the CD drive (or DVD drive - whatever optical drive you are using) as the first boot device in the BIOS. Restart with the Windows XP CD in the drive. It should then boot from the Windows CD to begin the process to format the hard drive and the installation of Windows. Early in the process it will ask if you want to install third party drivers, then press F6. This is when you install the SATA/RAID drivers. However, you will need these drivers to be installed from a floppy disk for this process to work. If the motherboard did not come with these drivers already on floppies, your motherboard manual will tell you the procedure on how to create a floppy from the motherboard driver CD. As an alternative you can download the SATA/RAID drivers from the motherboard manufacturer's website. They still need to go onto a floppy.

 

[befe]

The problem i am having is that my computer wont boot from the cd. The DVD drive is first in the list and i deleted the hard drive from the booting devices. But as i said, the xp cd wont boot. I tried it in another computer and it works. The dvd drive works, at least it runs and the led turns on. I dont know if maybe i have to install the drivers for the dvd drive but if i have to, how do i do it?
I saw that my drives were set up as IDE in the Bios, im going to try to set it to raid. I didnt do this before because i am not using raid so i didnt think it would work but ill try it. There is also another option called AHCI or something like that. Does anyone know what that is?

Thanks