Ok, I came pretty close to a successfil build, but things have kinda blown up.
Ill start with the most recent and pressing issue, which is basically a total malfunciton. While I was installing windows (was probably about 90% done, I had entered in computer name et al.) the computer just shut down. When I try to start it up again it does not work. With the power supply on, the two LEDs on the motherboard are on. However, when I push the 'on" button on the front of the case, the fans twitch as if to start adn then nothing happens. I do not really know, but I assume this has to be a problem with the power supply or motherboard? (one is broken?)
My set up is exactly as described in the anandtech guide (AMD system):
http://anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2753&p=10
The only difference is I have two of the video cards, and an additional Raptor WD 74GB HD.
So that is my current problem which has put my plans to a complete stop.
Prior to that disaster there were some other issues. The actual assemby went pretty smooth. I started up ok, made some minor changes in the BIOS (boot off CD first, RAM timing speeds, and set to boot from my Raptor 74GB drive second, then the 250GB drive)
Now I go ahead and start the windows installation. It recognized both hard drives. I press C to particition the Raptor (where I want to install XP). That works, and I press enter to load XP onto that drive. Now, setup says that it needs write some files on the 250GB drive (huh?) and it is not partitioned. It wants to particiton it, so I say ok. It goes ahead and formats BOTH hard drives and installs XP on the Raptor (the file directory tree is all on the Raptor). Windows is up and running great! I put on the drivers for the video cards, motherboard etc and all looks good.
Now I resart the computer and it goes to a start-up page and basically cannot boot up. It asks me to put in a system disk. Hmm. I restart and hit esc. to get to the device boot menu. I try to boot off the Raptor 74GB drive and the same thing happens. Try again and boot off the 250GB drive and windows loads up just fine (how is that?) So basically, the system will boot up off of the big drive, even though windows is installed on the Raptor.
The only thing I could think of was that either the Raptor did not come as a bootable disk (seemed unlikely), or that there was a SATA driver that I should have installed at the beginning of XP installation (although I though thtat it would not recognize the drive if this was teh problem), I wanted to try to correct this problem, so I was going to do some research to figure out what the problem was. So I wanted teh computer to be able to run if I had to mess around with the raptor. So I removed teh Raptor drive and re-ran teh Windows installation disk. During that installation, the blow up I started this post with happened.
Any help troubleshooting this would be greatly appreciated.
Doug
Ill start with the most recent and pressing issue, which is basically a total malfunciton. While I was installing windows (was probably about 90% done, I had entered in computer name et al.) the computer just shut down. When I try to start it up again it does not work. With the power supply on, the two LEDs on the motherboard are on. However, when I push the 'on" button on the front of the case, the fans twitch as if to start adn then nothing happens. I do not really know, but I assume this has to be a problem with the power supply or motherboard? (one is broken?)
My set up is exactly as described in the anandtech guide (AMD system):
http://anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=2753&p=10
The only difference is I have two of the video cards, and an additional Raptor WD 74GB HD.
So that is my current problem which has put my plans to a complete stop.
Prior to that disaster there were some other issues. The actual assemby went pretty smooth. I started up ok, made some minor changes in the BIOS (boot off CD first, RAM timing speeds, and set to boot from my Raptor 74GB drive second, then the 250GB drive)
Now I go ahead and start the windows installation. It recognized both hard drives. I press C to particition the Raptor (where I want to install XP). That works, and I press enter to load XP onto that drive. Now, setup says that it needs write some files on the 250GB drive (huh?) and it is not partitioned. It wants to particiton it, so I say ok. It goes ahead and formats BOTH hard drives and installs XP on the Raptor (the file directory tree is all on the Raptor). Windows is up and running great! I put on the drivers for the video cards, motherboard etc and all looks good.
Now I resart the computer and it goes to a start-up page and basically cannot boot up. It asks me to put in a system disk. Hmm. I restart and hit esc. to get to the device boot menu. I try to boot off the Raptor 74GB drive and the same thing happens. Try again and boot off the 250GB drive and windows loads up just fine (how is that?) So basically, the system will boot up off of the big drive, even though windows is installed on the Raptor.
The only thing I could think of was that either the Raptor did not come as a bootable disk (seemed unlikely), or that there was a SATA driver that I should have installed at the beginning of XP installation (although I though thtat it would not recognize the drive if this was teh problem), I wanted to try to correct this problem, so I was going to do some research to figure out what the problem was. So I wanted teh computer to be able to run if I had to mess around with the raptor. So I removed teh Raptor drive and re-ran teh Windows installation disk. During that installation, the blow up I started this post with happened.
Any help troubleshooting this would be greatly appreciated.
Doug
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