Doing fresh install of XP pro

[UDT89]

So i reformatted my HD and i'm doing a fresh install.

Originally i was doing it with the formatted HD setup as the master, and a HD with info on it setup as the slave. It goes through setup and has all these errors that it cant setup the driskdrive, cdrom, and system. It finished and reboots and i get this blue screen error with the error in white letters on the top left. Something about a system.??? is corrupt or missing or something.

I took out the non formatted HD, changed the formatted HD to single, and ran the setup. It reboots after formatting, and gets to this windows setup screen, and a window is there that says please wait on a blue back drop of the windows XP logo. It just sits there and doesnt do anything.

What can this be? The HD was fine before i formatted, i did the quick and long format options and both do the same thing. Thanks.

 

[mechBgon]

Specs / parts list? Including power supply brand/model And is your CD clean, in all senses of the word?

 

[UDT89]

formatted HD is western digital 40gig
drive with info is 40gig IBM Deskstar

Its a Gateway computer with a AMD athlon 1100, so power supply im not sure of

The install disk is a NFR disk that i got from a convention i went to. The disk appears clean. I did a fresh install about 3 months ago and had no problems with the disk, and the disk has been in its case since.

 

[mechBgon]

If it's not too much of a hassle, you might try a different optical drive next.

 

[UDT89]

why would my drive be the problem?

 

[mechBgon]

"entropy" Stuff doesn't last forever. If you wanted to try something else, you could run Memtest86 and the drive diagnostic for your HDD (bottom of page has links). Good luck

 

[UDT89]

well my whole computer is FUBAR now.

so i got a new case and PSU, and transferred everything to the new case.

But my dvdrw isnt recognized on startup, so i cant use it as a boot device. Basically how do i start truly fresh, as if the computer is being put together new.

I got a new xp install disk, so i'll try that as well.

 

[mechBgon]

If the mobo isn't recognizing the optical drive, one possibility is that there's a short-circuit situation going on somewhere, maybe an extra standoff in the case where the mobo has no hole. Or maybe your optical drive is toast. Is the PSU in the new case a respectable brand, by the way?

You could try the board outside the case on cardboard to eliminate various causes of short circuits, and if you can pull a CD-ROM drive out of a different computer for testing/setup, that might be a good approach.