Comp won't boot normally after reformat

[aberdeen5]

The boot order is HDD, floppy, cdrom..like it always has been. Even when i unplug the optical drive it still asks. It'll say booting from CD then scream at me that the boot failed and i need to insert a "system disk" and press enter. If i go into the boot menu and set it to boot from cd it'll work (but only if my XP reinstall cd is in) and it'll just say "press any key to boot from CD..." and go to windows. I've reset the cmos and that did nothing. I have no idea why it is doing this especially right after a reformat.

Edit: This is what it says:

"Verifying DMI Pool Data......
DISK BOOT FAILURE,
INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"

could this have something to do with my HDD?

 

[BadThad]

Hard drive size? PATA or SATA? Configured on PATA Primary IDE channel as MASTER or SINGLE or CABLE SELECT?

 

[aberdeen5]

I have windows on a 160GB SATA and an 80GB PATA on cable select(set to slave) as a backup

 

[BadThad]

Originally posted by: aberdeen5
I have windows on a 160GB SATA and an 80GB PATA on cable select(set to slave) as a backup

That's what's going on, the BIOS is trying first to boot to the PATA drive but it can't. If you can, go into BIOS and change the boot to SATA only or OTHER.....all BIOSes are different, but that is the root of the problem. Don't include HDD in the boot order....which sounds strange, but you often have to with a mixed SATA/PATA setup like you have.

 

[Arkane13131]

set boot order with your CD and floppy being before the Harddrive and it should clean that up.

hope this solves it.