Problems after installing a New Hard Drive

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thicknsane

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Hello, I'm new to this board. I appreciate all of your help in advance.
Ok, I have a computer thats about 6 years old that i am trying to restore for my children. I got a hold of a new hard drive, so I decided to put it in. Originally the computer had a 40gb hd . The computer conked out eventually and i think the hd crashed, because I was getting the error message "no os system found" So after a few years i decided to get a new hd and start this project. I replaced the drive with A maxtor 160 gb ATA drive. Currently according to the BIOS it detected it after i replaced it, (at least when i pulled up the bios screen, i see it there) anyways, the computer has sdram /pc100 intel chip 256 memory and Im guessing that the last time the computer worked, I had recently upgraded it with windows xp professional. (by the way, i can't figure out the password, its been so long ago) anyways, now when i start it up I get

We apologize for the inconvenience, but Windows did not start successfully. A recent hardware or software change might have caused this.

If your computer stopped responding, restarted unexpectedly, or was automatically shut down to protect your files and folders, choose Last Known Good Configuration to revert to the most recent settings that worked.

If a previous startup attempt was interrupted due to a power failure or because the Power or Reset button was pressed, or if you aren't sure what caused the problem, choose Start Windows
Normally.

Safe Mode
Safe Mode with Networking
Safe Mode with Command Prompt

Last Known Good Configuration (your most recent settings that worked) Start Windows Normally

Use the up and down arrow keys to move the highlight to your choice.

EVERY option I select does nothing, it keeps going back to this screen. I don't know what to do, I selected the recovery console option, but as I said it asks for a password, and obviously I don't know it, because it keeps saying its incorrect. I don't know what to do, I dont have any recovery disks for this computer. I have a windows xp professional cd, but when i put it in it doesnt boot from it, and i already changed the boot sequence so it reads from the cd rom first. it always goes to this screen Any suggestions....I don't know what to do

Ive tried putting my windows xp professional in the cd drive and rebooting the system, but its not prompting me to hit any key to reboot from the cd. It keeps going to the same screen. The software works, i'm certain of that. I have a HP pavilion 510 c ....phoenix system bios, trigerm mother board, intel i810E, SDRAM/PC100 2 DIMM/ 512 MB.

ANY HELP IS GREATLY APPRECIATED.
 
lemme get this straight.

- you have a pc that you haven't used for a while because it broke (old hdd)
- you replaced the old hdd with the 160gb hdd
- you installed windows using the cd that came with your PC?
- and the screen above keeps presenting itself?

A couple of things to note:
- if you never set a password for windows' admin account, its just plain blank (just press enter)
- if are using a windows xp installation without SP2, it won't be able to support HDDs larger than 127Gb, so try partitioning it to 40Gb for your windows and programs and the rest for storage?
 
I am trying to install a newer xp proffessional cd that I got from school, NOT the one that came with the pc, but my xp proffessional is w/ SP1 not 2. I vaguely remember how to partition the drive. How do I go about partioning the drive to 40 gb?
 
ok, thanks, because remember, i'm not sure how to install windows from scratch, when i turn on my pc, I only get the above messsage, about restart windows normally, but it keeps rebooting back to that same screen. Ive figured out how to get to a dos prompt, and I was able to see information about the partitioned space, now how do i verify if this hd is blank/clean or does it have to be in order to do this, and when i add a partitioned space what do i do from there? in other words, what prompt do i need to be at (c:> or c:windows> etc. oand what dos command do i need to run, to create another partition, which kind of file system do i need to create it at and what will i need to do after that?

oh, diskpart is the command....but what about the other ?'s :) Im not super slow, but I don't want to mess this up.

also, i tried going into the i386 drive and running the winnt, winnt32 command and it does nothing, it gives me an error like that command is not recognized (like its a user error) but im guesssing that doesnt work because its not a sp2, but why won't it even recognize the command, thats the correct syntax right?
 
You are going about this entirely wrong I think.

The XP Pro disk is bootable. Boot the computer off of that, begin the install. One of the screens asks you where to install, you can create and delete partitions at that screen, as well as format them. EVERYTHING you need to have done is covered in the XP installation process. There is absolutely no reason to go screwing around with command prompts.

So completely forget about your menu screen that screws up when you choose things and just boot off the cd.
 
Just boot from the XP install CD. When you get to the screen that shows the partitions, or in the case of a new hard drive, the unpartitioned space, select "new install". The "new" hard drive will be partitioned fully to 160GB and XP will be installed. You might have to Activate this copy of XP, but it not hard to do. Good luck...
 
See, where my problem is, iT WONT BOOT FROM THE CD. I will not prompt me to boot from the cd or nothing, i only goes to this menu immediately. I already changed the bios and everything, it only goes to this menu, when i have the cd inserted. Do you know ANOTHER command to prompt the cd to ask me this ? or what else could i try to MAKE the computer boot from the cd

EVERY option I select does nothing, it keeps going back to this screen. I don't know what to do, I selected the recovery console option, but as I said it asks for a password, and obviously I don't know it, because it keeps saying its incorrect. I don't know what to do, I dont have any recovery disks for this computer. I have a windows xp professional cd, but when i put it in it doesnt boot from it, and i already changed the boot sequence so it reads from the cd rom first. it always goes to this screen Any suggestions....I don't know what to do

Ive tried putting my windows xp professional in the cd drive and rebooting the system, but its not prompting me to hit any key to reboot from the cd. It keeps going to the same screen. The software works, i'm certain of that. I have a HP pavilion 510 c ....phoenix system bios, trigerm mother board, intel i810E, SDRAM/PC100 2 DIMM/ 512 MB.

SNGX1275 said:
You are going about this entirely wrong I think.

The XP Pro disk is bootable. Boot the computer off of that, begin the install. One of the screens asks you where to install, you can create and delete partitions at that screen, as well as format them. EVERYTHING you need to have done is covered in the XP installation process. There is absolutely no reason to go screwing around with command prompts.


So is XP SP1 bootable as well, and if so is there a command that i can press to MAKE the cd boot, because its not working, otherwise, could there be a possible issue with other hardware or something that would cause this to happen?
 
You need to set the boot order in your BIOS to check the CD Drive before it checks the HD.
 
"I have a windows xp professional cd, SP1 but when i put it in it doesnt boot from it, and i already changed the boot sequence so it reads from the cd rom first."
it always goes to this screen Any suggestions....

Ok this is what it says when i get to the command dskpart.....Some one please break that down for me

The following list shows the existing partions and unpartioned space on this computer.

156332 MBDISK 0 at ID0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]

D: Partition1 (HP RECOVERY) [FAT32] 6453mb(1157free)

C: partition2(HP_PAVILLION) [NTFS] 149871 mb (131090 mb free)

Unpartitioned Space 7 mb

well at least tell me what to delete and what to create...with commands if you can help me with that.
 
I suppose you could download the 6 XP bootup floppies, but lemme guess, you don't have a floppy drive. I was pretty certain all genuine microsoft XP disks were bootable, perhaps not.
 
Change to another CDROM

I have see the same problem on a couple pcs, a fine bootable cd doesnt boot, I just change the cd drive. I gess Its something about not reading the media correctly.
 
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