new system build, not starting uggg

[Lorduss]

i got my shipment in from newegg, mobo, video card, psu, processor, ram.
threw the tidbits into my old case andnow i cant get past bios
i have a new sata hard drive and a older pata with a win xp install on it (win xp my only OS)
if i have my new sata plugged in, when i threw in the winxp install disk and put my dvd drive as my first boot drive, it just keeps repeating insert bootible media and press any key, just repeats.
it well read the drive for a bit, run the hd then it just repeats the message.
when i unplug the sata and just have the pata plugged in, it boots to the starting windows screen then as soon as that image hits the screen the system restarts it self, with the pata hooked up i throw in the win xp install disk and it just tosses me to the start windows normaly, safe mode etc. wont let me hit the install screen to try install to boot.
little puzzled at the moment, not sure what to try next.

MB ASUS|M4A785TD-V EVO 785G RT
PSU ANTEC| NEO ECO 620C 620W RT
CPU AMD|ATH II X3 445 3.1G AM3 RT
MEM 2Gx2|GSKILL F3-10666CL9D-4GBRL
HD 320G|WD 7K 8M SATA2 WD3200AAJS

 

[Lorduss]

all of my voltages are set to auto, precessor did notcome with voltage specs,
wonderin if setting everything to specifics might change this, not sure how to identify this problem being a faulty psu, mobo etc.

 

[laserhawk64]

"I don't know but I been told"... WinXP + SATA of any kind requires a driver floppy if I remember right...

 

[Lorduss]

i understand that, but windows wont even start to install, its more like a drive read failure.
the other drive restarting during bootup realy puzzles me, but im pretty sure both problems are somehow related,
i have tryed 1 stick at a time, both eventually in each of the 4 ram slots.
i installed the new board same as the older one it replaced, im guessing there might be a short.
i get into bios and it posts just fine, doesnt show me any errors of any kind.

 

[laserhawk64]

Did you go into the BIOS and change the boot order so that it automatically looks for the boot CD first and the HDD second?

IF NO --> Change it and see what happens.

IF YES --> Hmm, we've got ourselves a little problem here. Get yourself a spare optical drive and chuck it in there, see if that works. You may need to play around with the cables... some optical drives don't like to share ;-) But that's mostly with the butt-old ones.

 

[Lorduss]

ive played with that in the bios several times, when it pointed to the sata hd first, it would stop and say no operatimg system (if i rember) when it pointed to the dvd drive first, it would eventually hit a black screen and say insert a bootible media and press any key, both of my win xp disks (reg and pro) neather one would get past that question or do anything different, it would start to read the disk then just stop and say the same thing again,
so far im only keeping 1 dvd drive and 1 hd plugged in at a time, the bare min till i figure this out.
i have 2 optical drives and have tryed them both, they are years old each but both allways worked for me on this machine/case. both give me the same result.

could the auto volt settings on my mobo in bios be dropping volts during startup to allow it to restart once it hits the windows is starting screen? or can i rule that out? that puzzles the hell out of me but makes me think short.

 

[laserhawk64]

Doubt it's the autovolt thingy.

Might be a bad disc, but my money's on the drives.

 

[Lorduss]

should i try resetting the cmos?

 

[laserhawk64]

*shrug* couldn't hurt...

 

[Lorduss]

and not to be so random about my questions, aside from my trouble installing windows, why is the system restarting during the windows boot up in the other case?
i dont see how a bad file or hd failure can cause this, but i may be wrong.

another instance i get is on my harddrive with a win install, when i choose to boot first from the dvd how can i avoid ending up at the "start windows normaly" etc screen? or does this simply mean my optical drive is not working the way it should?

 

[laserhawk64]

You're fine ;-) I'm the only one in my family who understands computers worth a &#$@ so I'm quite used to endless questions and quizzical looks.

Basically, what's going on is this:

When you hit the power button, the BIOS executes a POST (Power-On Self Test) and, assuming that passes, initializes the hardware and looks for an operating system (OS).

In your system, you've told it (through the BIOS/CMOS config settings) to look for the OS first on the optical drive, and then on other media (such as a hard drive).

For whatever reason, the computer isn't recognizing the disc as having a bootloader or boot record or anything like that. In other words, there's nothing there that the system can execute in its "raw" state. However, when it goes to look in the other media, it finds WinXP on the old HDD and says to itself, "Hey, here's something useful! Let's use it." So that's where it boots.

This tells me one of two things: either the CD is cooked (I assume you're not pulling a real derp error and putting the disc in upside down...) or the drive(s) is/are.

But... if it were just the disc, you'd be able to boot into WinXP just fine.

Now, let me tell you a wee little story.

Friend of mine gave me a pile-of-$##! old heap of a Gateway box. The date on the little sticker on the back sez it was made in 2000. Didn't boot worth a cr*p. Tried installing Ubuntu Linux over the nonfunctional XP... kept getting ATA errors of one sort or another (too technical for me and I don't remember anyways) out the wazoo. After a bit, it just froze at certain points in the install... which made me realize something. The CD drive was so broken that it was actually /corrupting/ the disc in it! (That's a special kinda special...)

Replaced the CD drive, boom! Working Linux box. Wound up replacing all but three components in the entire system in the name of upgrades. That thing was an absolute mess and quite frustrating to work with!

So... two lessons from that story:
(1) Never trust a CD drive unless you absolutely have to.
(2) Never, ever try to upgrade a Gateway *shudder*

So, if I were you, I'd make sure that those drives actually /do/ work. I've had CD drives fail from me looking at them wrong. Stick the drive in another computer. If it reads a CD, it's good. Test both.

EDIT: OK, I'm a derp myself. It just occurred to me that it could be something else causing the CD drive to act like it's an idiot. Gotta ribbon cable that you /know/ works? It's not common for a cable to go bad, but I have had my fair share...

 

[Lorduss]

ok, it was the cdrom drive, replaced it and now everything is working fine, posting from the new unit at the moment, my question now lies in getting my sata drive to show up, it shows up in bios but not in windows,
Am i looking for a mobo driver or win driver? am i looking for a RAID driver?
thanks a bunch

 

[laserhawk64]

Win driver for SATA/RAID. (Not the same thing, but often found together...)

 

[AFurryReptile]

ok, it was the cdrom drive, replaced it and now everything is working fine, posting from the new unit at the moment, my question now lies in getting my sata drive to show up, it shows up in bios but not in windows,
Am i looking for a mobo driver or win driver? am i looking for a RAID driver?
thanks a bunch

You won't need a driver for your SATA drive. Go to device manager, click on disk management, and you will probably see an unformatted SATA drive. Format as NTFS, assign a drive letter, and you're gold.

 

[laserhawk64]

D'oh! Didn't know that... seriously, I thought WinXP needed drivers to use an SATA HDD at all...? Guess that's what I get for never messing with 'em...

 

[Lorduss]

You won't need a driver for your SATA drive. Go to device manager, click on disk management, and you will probably see an unformatted SATA drive. Format as NTFS, assign a drive letter, and you're gold.

in device manager under disk drives i see it actually, but i cant find a option to format, ther eis no disk management section
this is xp sp3 byt he way.
how else can i go about this?

 

[laserhawk64]

Ah! This part I /can/ help you on, I think.

Right click on "My Computer" (on the desktop or in the Start menu, doesn't matter) and select "Manage". A dialog box should pop up with some options. Click "Storage", then "Disk Management". (May be "Disk Management (Local)".)

Select the SATA drive and partition that sucker! (Options in the right-click menu. Clicks in different places give different options.)

 

[Lorduss]

that worked, awesome thanks, never seen that option in win xp before, love finding new screens.

 

[laserhawk64]

always glad to help!