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PLease please help a newbie with little time

U

ucdoc

Junior Member
Hi, this is my first time posting here and I am need of help. I am a hematologist oncologist in training and with a rigorous work schedule and foolishly decided to build a new computer for the first time and I have hit a road block.

components are new mostly and include:

p4p800 deluxe MB with latest bios 1010 preloaded
kingston 3500 ram 1 gig kit for a 2.4 intel processor in dual channel mode
ibm and western HD's, dvd rom toshiba and burner by lite on.
radeon 9700 pro video card
windows xp professional

now here is the problem. I assembled everything yesterday and computer loaded just fine, even loaded windows xp and was at the desktop. I then decided to change the hd master slave settings. i have the hd's connected from ide 1 with one master and one slave. THe second ide connects the dvd rom and burner. Anyway after changing the setting I noticed:

-delay at asus mb ai series intro screen
-then the usual via tech screen which has always showed no detection of devices.
-cmos time date error (in instances after clearing the cmos)
-then get a message saying setup is inspecting hardware configuration with very long delay.
-then I get to a windows setup screen and after another long wait I get the choices to format hd, install xp, repair etc. (this is because I have to boot from the windows xp cd otherwise I am stuck at the boot up from bootable source screen)
-I have formated hds, installed just one, installed xp a gizillion times, and persistenly after a xp installation reboot instead of going into xp I get right back to this same cycle. If i dont have the xp disk in it asks for a boot disk
-in the bios everything looks dandy, ide drives are all properally configured.

I dont know what to do, I have a huge grand rounds to preset in three weeks and no computer. I respect you guys that put these things together. I think writing chemotherapy orders for cancer pt's is a lot easier !!!

I thank you in advance for the help you can give a first timer.
 
Regarding the IDE, what exactly did you change? Before, you had the hard drives on IDE 1 with master and slave, but afterwards, what did you change the stuff to?
 
I changed the hd to the other way around made the slave the master and master the slave. sounds kinds "plantation" like doesn't it. funny.
 
Um, the OS was probably installed on the previous master on the C: partition. If you switched the two hard drives around, the OS may not be able to boot.
 
I have ofcourse gone back to the inital installation and still nothing changes. i have tried even one hd, each individually to no avail
 
Hopefully your data is on a separate partition from OS. If so, just reformat the C: partition on the drive that you want to install the OS on, setup your drives the way you want to keep them (master, slave), and install windows and the progs again.
 
I have done that many times and keep coming back to the windows set up screen instead of getting into the desktop. so I have this cycle going on.
 
yes I have just tried that and keep going to this cycle to set up windows xp, never make it to desk top. even tried xp home that I have and same thing
 
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