Need help with XP install/boot

[harsh]

A buddy of mine got a new HDD and another 512mb of ram. He also is finally going to install XP (been using 98). He has virtually no knowledge when it comes to installing anything so this is where I come in.

I have to flash his BIOS to support the new HDD he got since it is 160gb and his BIOS previousley only supported up to 136gb (Abit TH7II). The flash went very smooth. I removed his old HDD and put in the new one. Turn on the comp and go through the BIOS settings. Stick in the XP disk and reboot. He wanted the whole drive as one partition so I start it as such. Then the error comes, I can't remember exactly what it said but it won't let me install XP to that partition. It will not go to the screen to select what type of file system I want. I try to partition the drive in half which it allows me to do, but I get the same error when I try to install XP to a partition. I ran the Western Diigital diag thing..no failures. I then decide to boot the comp with his old HDD in as the primary and the new HDD as the slave. Lo and behold it flies right through the XP install. I then decide to see if the comp will boot directly from the new HDD without the old HDD installed. No luck.

So what can I do to get the comp to boot without the old HDD installed? Is it still a BIOS thing?

 

[MrChad]

You need to slipstream at least SP1 (I would recommend SP2) in order to install a partition larger than 137 GB.

 

[harsh]

I was installing XP SP2 on a brand new HDD. I got it installed, but only if the older 20gig drive is in the system as the primary. Plus the comp will not boot up if the 160gig drive is there by itself or set as the primary.

 

[harsh]

OK so I went back to try and get the error I was getting when I initially tried to load XP. Of course now that it has already been formatted (NTFS) I don't get the error. With the 20 gig drive in as the primary the system will come up and ask me which OS I want to run (dual boot). With the 160gig in as the primary I still cannot boot, but now I get an NTDLR missing error. Which I pressume is becasue I started to try and reload XP but I backed out when it came up to the format HD page. My buddy started loading his info onto the 160gig drive (after I told him to wait) so he didn't want me to re-format it. Would running the fix an install get rid of the missing NTDLR error and possibly let the system boot from the 160gig drive?

I also noticed that while in XP I can see the 20gig drive, but while in 98 I can't see the 160gig drive. Just struck me as odd.

 

[MrChad]

Try removing the 20 GB drive, setting the 160 GB drive as primary and booting to the Windows setup CD. Load the recovery console and run the bootcfg command (info). You may also want to try FIXMBR. My guess is that either the master boot record on the 160 GB drive is not configured correctly, or the partition is not set to active.

Incidentally, the reason you cannot see your drive from within 98 is because 98 cannot mount NTFS volumes.