New Computer Help

[thegreatkamikaz]

I recently built a computer myself for the first time but I've had some problems in trying to install Windows. The BIOS recognizes the hard drives and DVD drive, but when I try to start the computer it can't find them. I used a boot disk in the floppy drive but it still won't recognize any other drives when in DOS mode. If anybody has any ideas of what I could do to get it working I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

Take a look at this thread HERE, it may help.

Your hard drive, should be set/jumpered as master on IDE channel 0. Your DVD drive should be set/jumpered as master on IDE channel 1.

You should set the boot order in your bios to Floppy/dvd/hard drive.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave:

 

[alidabiri]

you can try this:
it always works:

get a 98 floppy boot disk from www.bootdisk.com
start your pc with boot disk in the machine
select "start windows 98 with cd-rom support"
after win98 comes up, enter fdisk
does it show your hdd? if so,
display partition(s) (if any)
delete partition(s)
create new partition
restart
format the hard disk
turn pc off
take win98 boot disk out
put xp cd in the cd rom drive
turn pc on
get into bios
go to boot sequence and choose "boot from cd first"
save bios, exit.
let xp install.
alternately you can start with 98 boot disk with cd-rom support, then navigate to i386 folder in the cd rom, and start the install process by winnt.exe or winnt32.exe command. the former is for dos, and the latter is for windows.

 

[thegreatkamikaz]

Do I need a 98 CD for it? I have and XP, but not a win98.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

No, you can format/create partitions etc straight from the XP cd.

1 restart your computer and go to setup usually by pressing the F2 or delete key.

2 Once you get into setup look for the boot menu and make sure you set it to boot from cd first followed by your hard drive.

3 Put the Windows xp disk into your cd.

4 Now save your settings and exit setup.

5 While your computer is booting you will see a message that says "press any key to boot from cd" press any key.

6 When the welcome to setup screen appears press enter and then press F8 to accept the Microsoft licence agreement.

7 You will be prompted to repair an insallation press the escape key.

8 Now select the partition that you want to reformat and press the D key to delete it you will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the partition.

9 Now press C to create a brand new partition you will be asked what size you want the partition to be in mega bytes. If you just press enter then the partition will be the maximum size that you can have. This is perfectly ok if you don`t want to create multiple partitions.

10 You will now be asked to format the partition select the ntfs file sytem and do a full format.

11 Once the format is complete setup will continue.

Your computer will restart during the remaining setup again you will be asked to press any key to boot from cd DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING. and setup will continue. Once the setup is complete and you are back in Windows remove the Windows cd from your cd drive.

Regards Howard

 

[alidabiri]

you can also start install process by running winnt.exe in the i386 folder on xp cd. without booting from cd or whatever.