Missing Operating system error...help!

[VinY]

Ok guys, I am fixing a computer for my friend...he bought a Western Digital 40 gig drive to replace his 4 gig drive inside his Compaq Presario 5304 right now. So I partition and format the drive in DOS (1 full partition), install Windows 2000, then I had some problems so I decided to just reformat the drive. Just to be safe, I deleted all partitions, booted off the Windows 2000 CD, and formatted with NTFS. That finishes and it's time to reboot and boot off the hard disk to continue the installation, when I just get this error "Missing Operating System". Again, I delete the NTFS partition, create a new FAT32 partition, and boot off the Windows 2000 CD. That finishes, then when I boot off the hard disk now, it says "NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart". Anyone know what is going on and how I can fix it? I tried researching it a little to no avail, the jist of what I found out was that this has something to do with either the master boot record or the FAT32 partition tables. I really have to fix this since it's my friend's computer! Any help appreciated, thanks in advance!

EDIT: When I access the drive in DOS, I can see the drive, with a WINNT directory.

 

[VinY]

Well just now I reformatted the drive again, this time using a quick format (format c: /q). I boot off the Windows 2000 CD, it copies files, then reboots...now it boots up into the installation perfectly fine. Anyone have any idea if there is something wrong with this hard drive or if *possibly* all the necessary files were not being copied to the hard drive from the Windows 2000 CD? Thanks!

 

[jcmkk]

I think it was just the master boot record and it was finally cleared out by the install.