Once a system is put together from scratch what is the order of installing drivers/OS.

[spartacuskzm]

Just put all the components together for an Athlon XP system and now need to boot up for the first time . What should I do? Drivers, then Win XP - or the other way around? Which one works?

Thanks!

 

[ElFenix]

OS first

then you should install your motherboard drivers. use the latest ones. then video drivers. again the latest. after that pretty much any order you feel like (or windows feels like, rather).

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

elfenix has it

OS, mobo drivers (4in1's for example), video, other peripherals, windows update, software.

 

[spartacuskzm]

What should I expect when I first turn it on (yes, I'm a TOTAL newbie). Will I get the Bios? Will it ask me to boot from the CD Rom, etc, etc....

Thanks (and sorry for being a nit-wit).

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

hey no prob you gotta start somewhere

just turn on the computer with no disc in, make sure the thing works. it will say "no operating system" or something of that sort but thats to be expected. when you are doing this you can power it off at anytime, it's not sensitive to being "shut down", it's jsut the bios at work. you can hit a key at boot up to enter the bios (del or something else, it will say it onscreen "press X to enter setup". setup=bios.

when you confirm that it actually boots and works, boot it up and put in the windows cd right away, before it gets past the memory check and POST, and it should boot from the cd. if not, you might have to mess with the bios under the "boot" section, make sure your cdrom drive is set to boot before your hard drive.

it will boot from the XP cd and it will be pretty straightforward from there.

oh and btw with XP you really dont need to install mobo drivers so you can probably cross that off your list. it should detect and install most drivers for you, so it is optional if you want to upgrade to newest drivers, you should be fine though. but if you're using a VIA chipset then leave the 4in1's alone for now because people seem to have lots of probs using the non-XP-default drivers.

 

[Demonicon]

Go into your BIOS first(delete key) and select your cd-rom as your first boot device(save changes), put in the XP disk and it will ask you to select your partition and format your harddrive(recommend NTFS), that should get you started.

 

[spartacuskzm]

Ok - here goes nothing. Gonna try it. I'll reply w/ my results (in case you're interested) w/in a few minutes. Thanks!!!

 

[spartacuskzm]

Can't find where in BIOS I can select the CD as boot drive. I have an Epox 8kha+.

 

[Demonicon]

There wont be an option for boot drive, you just have to put the CD-rom first in your boot order(likely the floppy drive is set to first now, which is fine, you just want the cd-rom to be before the hard drive in the boot order. HTH

 

[spartacuskzm]

Where do I establish the boot order? Under what BIOS setting?

Thanks

 

[spartacuskzm]

Forget it - found it. Now just have to deal with my "disk boot failure" from my AOPEN CD/RW :-(

 

[Demonicon]

You do have the windows disk in right?

 

[spartacuskzm]

To expand, it appears that the computer tries to read from the CD, but then attempts to read from the floppy as well. Is there a way I can disable the floppy from doing this?

Any other thoughts on how to start loading XP?

 

[spartacuskzm]

Yes, the windows CD is in...that's it.

 

[Demonicon]

If you don't have a disk in the floppy drive, it wont matter if it spins up, it won't cause any problems.

If you don't want the floppy to spin up like this select cd-rom as your first boot drive, your hard drive as the second boot drive.


Check in your bios to make sure the computer sees your hard drive and cd-rom.

 

[spartacuskzm]

Under standard CMOS Features it says:

IDE Primary Master: IC35L0AVER07-0
IDE PRimery Slave: None
IDE Secondary Master: AOPEN CD-RW CRW244
IDE Secondary Slave: None

Drive A: 1.44M
Drive B: None

Again, the problem I'm having is that when I try to boot from the CD it give me a boot error which says:

Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk and Press Enter

Clueless, as usual, am I.

 

[Demonicon]

When you try booting, does it even say "press any key to boot from cd-rom"

 

[spartacuskzm]

No, it says (upon boot up)
Verifying DMI Pool Data..............
Boot From CD:
Disk Boot Failure, Inster system disk and press enter.

That's it.

 

[spartacuskzm]

Going to bed...still couldn't figure it out.

Tried unplugging floppy (when off), still got same error.
Tried using DVD rom instead of CD/RW - still got same error.
Tried disabling all bootups besides CD - still got same error.

If anybody has any ideals I'll definitely like to see them tomorrow morning.

Thanks!

 

[Cosmic_Horror]

ok you are trying to boot from WinXp cd but it is failing to boot?

The cdrw seems to be detected fine in the bios, and the fact that you get :

Verifying DMI Pool Data..............
Boot From CD:
Disk Boot Failure, Inster system disk and press enter.

indicates that the boot process is set up properly.

assuming that the cdrw is working properly (you mention you have tried it with a dvd drive and get the same problem indicates that there could be a problem with the winXP cd itself.

Have you tried booting from it on another system?

 

[sandorski]

Is that a full version or an upgrade version? If it's an upgrade version you'll need to install the OS it was designed to upgrade.

 

[E3Art]

isnt this error simply due to the fact that the hard dirve isnt formated yet? im pretty sure that if you put in a boot up disk and then FDISK the drive and format you should be ok. you cant load windows till this step is compleated anyway

 

[sandorski]

E3art: If your booting off the cd you don't need the hard drive formatted. Also, with WinXP it will automatically setup bare hard drives.

 

[spartacuskzm]

Cosmic:
assuming that the cdrw is working properly (you mention you have tried it with a dvd drive and get the same problem indicates that there could be a problem with the winXP cd itself.
I tried using a different CD as well and it was a no-go. It doesn't seem to be the CD.

Sandorski - it's the full version.

E3 - I was told, like Sandorski said, that it should work just fine like that. However, if there is a longer way which might be easier I'm always up for it.

Thanks!

 

[c0rv1d43]

Let's be really specific about this, just in case this is merely a misunderstanding, okay?

If you have the system's boot order set with the CD first, then you should be seeing white text on a black background BEFORE the boot process fails. That text should be telling you to hit or press ANY KEY to boot from the CD-ROM. If you are not seeing that message, then something is wrong with that Windows XP setup CD or with your hardware. You do have to hit the key while that message is showing in order to start up from the CD and get the installation process going.

- Collin