Time for a new motherboard/HDD?

[CDC Mail Guy]

MSI N1996 Finds HDD in BIOS, I went to do a clean install of XP this morning, and after doing the format and loading of files, the computer restarted. As usual, I did NOT choose to boot from CD, and got this message

"Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)"
"NTLDR: Couldn't open drive multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)"

Is this a motherboard issue? XP issue? Or do I need to get a new Hard Drive?


Mods, I know I don't need to give permission, but please move if this is posted in wrong area. Thanks in advance for the help I KNOW I'll get here.

Edit: Jumper on Western Digital WD400 is on Cable Select

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

No one? I went to WD's site, and found out that if there is no other HDD, no jumper is needed so I took it off. Still nothing. I then tried a SATA drive and reset CMOS, all to no avail, so I think it's a motherboard problem.

 

[Cutthroat]

Apparently it installed your MBR because to get that error message it must be reading boot.ini.

I would format that drive, including the MBR, and try again.

It sounds like either a failed installation, or a bad HDD.

 

[AMCRambler]

Originally posted by: Cutthroat
Apparently it installed your MBR because to get that error message it must be reading boot.ini.

I would format that drive, including the MBR, and try again.

It sounds like either a failed installation, or a bad HDD.

I agree. Sounds like the install could have botched. Run fdisk /mbr to wipe out the the master boot record and then format the disk and do a reinstall of Windows. If you get the same result, the disk might be the problem. Run a surface scan on it and see what it comes up with at that point.

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

Okay...I let it sit for a day, and this morning I was able to finish the installation. For whatever reason, it just picked up like nothing had happened. So Windows IS installed. Now, it hangs for about 30 seconds (black screen) before XP loads. so I think I'll try a re-install.

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

Thanks for the suggestions, it's working now.