Strange boot situation

[DrumminBoy]

I just formatted my HD and installed a fresh copy of XP MCE. This is what happens when I set my boot order as follows:

1. Hard Drive
2. CDROM
System posts, message "Verifying DMI Data Pool" displays for about 5 seconds, then it says "Boot from CD:" (The windows disc is in) and finally it says "Disc boot failure. Insert system disc and press Enter."
Pressing enter just gives me the error again.

1. CDROM
2. Hard Drive
System posts then displays "Press Enter to boot from CD..."
This option only comes up if it's the Windows disc, otherwise I get a "non-system disc" error. If I press enter it obviously loads up the windows installer, but the strange thing is, if I dont press anything when it prompts me it loads up my fresh install of XP.

I don't know whats going on here, any help is appreciated.

 

[mechBgon]

1) what motherboard is it?

2) how many hard drives do you have in there, and what kind are they (including interface, meaning PATA or SATA)?

3) If there's more than one, which one did you install Windows onto?

 

[DrumminBoy]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
1) what motherboard is it?

2) how many hard drives do you have in there, and what kind are they (including interface, meaning PATA or SATA)?

3) If there's more than one, which one did you install Windows onto?

ABIT KN9 ULTRA (nForce 570)

2 Hard Drives:
1 250GB SATA set as primary with fresh XP installation
1 500GB SATA secondary (has an older XP installation)

 

[mechBgon]

If both drives were hooked up when you did the new install, that's probably the issue.

1) Unplug the extra drive, then boot from your Windows CD and begin Windows Setup.

2) Delete all the partitions on the boot drive and hit the F3 key twice to exit from Windows Setup

3) start Windows Setup again, make a partition, quick-format it and carry on.


There may be another way to overcome this, but that's a surefire approach there, and I remember it off the top of my head 😱 so there ya go.

 

[DrumminBoy]

Thanks, I'll give it a try