machine wont boot unless xp cd in drive

[DarkTXKnight]

hi all,

Ok I have just built a machine for work to burn DVD's :

AMD XP 2500
Epox EP- 8RDA+ board (nforce-2)
120 GB WD HDD
512 MB DDR
Sony DRU-500 AX DVD Writer

All of the assembly went fine, and when I loaded XP everything seems ok, but then after I rebooted later I get and invalid system disk in the bios . Thinking that some windows update toasted the install I go ahead and reload everything. When this later happens again I notice that it seems to happen after removing the windows XP cd. To test this theory, I put it back in the machine and voila! it boots.... this has never happened on any other loads and Im not doing anything different - if anyone knowns how to resolve this Id be grateful!!!!

Thanks in advance!

 

[DefRef]

It seems obvious, but have you checked make sure the CD isn't the first boot device?

 

[DefRef]

You may also want to try this over in General Hardware.

 

[Noid]

Same thing happened to my W2k.

It was the HD.

(I re-installed W2k ,,, didnt help,,, so I use it for a backup drive right now)

Bad boot sector.

That reminds me,,, I got a guarantee on that puppy ...

 

[DarkManXY2G]

Originally posted by: DefRef
It seems obvious, but have you checked make sure the CD isn't the first boot device?

I've done this before as well. Make sure you take the CD off as the first boot device. Also it could be due to a bad sector.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

nope guys I already went through the easy stuff.... DVD is the first to be checked in bios and the HDD-0, the HD is correctly setup as first device on chain etc. I am leaning towards this boot sector issue you speak of, which then makes me wonder if I should return the drive even if I could recreate the sector. This is a brand new 7200 rpm 8mb cache WD 120 GB drive ordered from newegg.

 

[DarkTXKnight]

well something else i have noticed is that when i started installing XP the screen seems to sit at detecting IDE devices for a long time, maybe 45 seconds or more, then finds all drives and continues to boot. I have put in another HDD and it detected thatsecond, older disk much faster and continued to boot odd huh?

 

[DarkTXKnight]

@##$ !!!!!!! thats it....... I was just now looking at the jumpers and there is a setting for single no master and single with slave and i had it set to single with slave, rebooted mahcine and it boots!!!!!! thanks broadkipa and all who helped.... everything looks normal now