XP pro SP2 woes

[Lan Nomad]

Hate to make a tech question my first post, but I'm kind of stuck here. So any help is greatly appreciated. It boots from cd just fine, but if it boots from the hdd, it'll just say disk boot failure, insert system disk.

Now it gets better. Even if I just boot from cd, and get everything installed on my pc (drivers, utilities, etc), it'll just say Error Loading OS after installing Service Pack 2.

So is this a bad windows xp cd I have? Is the hdd still broke-ed, or is this something as simple as running a command from a command prompt?

I just received this Western Digital Raptor back from an RMA.

System Specs:
Athlon 64 3000+
MSI nforce 4 sli platinum
1 GB Crucial pc3200
6800GS
36 GB WD Raptor
250 GB Maxtor
250 GB Maxtor

I know this is probably a no brainer for most tech support people, and I figure there's probably no better place to ask than these forums. This happened AFTER reformatting, and I have reformatted about 3 times already, and the same problem happens after SP2 is installed.

Error Loading OS

The 2 maxtors are on the primary IDE channel, the bios also lists the sata as an ide. The Maxtor drives are drives C and D, and the raptor is considered drive E. Not sure if windows is being picky about that, but its just more info if needed.

 

[montag451]

Can you run memtest.
What psu do you have - you have a lot of (clean) power that needs to be supplied to those 3 drives alone.
If you have anything less than a GOOD brand 400w, I would consider a new psu for starters.
Do you get the errors if you disconnect both the maxtors?

 

[unholy414]

Try installing SP2 with one drive connected (the one you want the OS on). It could be freaking out about the numerous hard drives. Having just one would limit the SP2 installation to the one drive and avoid conflicts with the other 2. Reinstall your OS with one drive connected and SP2 the same way. You can worry about the other 2 when things are up an running.

These errors though, do you get them on a DOS screen? Does windows show ANY sign of starting up?

 

[stevty2889]

Originally posted by: unholy414
Try installing SP2 with one drive connected (the one you want the OS on). It could be freaking out about the numerous hard drives. Having just one would limit the SP2 installation to the one drive and avoid conflicts with the other 2. Reinstall your OS with one drive connected and SP2 the same way. You can worry about the other 2 when things are up an running.

These errors though, do you get them on a DOS screen? Does windows show ANY sign of starting up?

Yep, I have had similar problems when installing windows to a SATA drive, while having other hard drives attached. Disconnect the other drives while intalling, then re-connect them afterwards, and make sure the boot order in the BIOS is correct as well.

 

[Lan Nomad]

I'll do both I guess, its actually a brand new 400watt psu from compusa, but its just their name brand, so I think I'm going to order something a little more top of the line just in case.

I'll be sure to format again with JUST the raptor drive hooked up. We'll see if it helps.

The errors occur in a dos screen, and windows doesn't really show any sign of trying to start up, its just its usual check to see what's connected, and then a DOS screen of Error Loading OS

no descriptions after, just error loading OS

I'll do all of the above, including buying a much better PSU. Thanks for the help and advice. I guess I'll just leave on the SATA only, and hold off on my other 2 hdd's until I get the new PSU just to be safe.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Lan Nomad
I'll do both I guess, its actually a brand new 400watt psu from compusa, but its just their name brand, so I think I'm going to order something a little more top of the line just in case.

I'll be sure to format again with JUST the raptor drive hooked up. We'll see if it helps.

The errors occur in a dos screen, and windows doesn't really show any sign of trying to start up, its just its usual check to see what's connected, and then a DOS screen of Error Loading OS

no descriptions after, just error loading OS

I'll do all of the above, including buying a much better PSU. Thanks for the help and advice. I guess I'll just leave on the SATA only, and hold off on my other 2 hdd's until I get the new PSU just to be safe.

You say this only happens after SP2 is installed; clearly this is not a hardware issue.

I'd suggest just popping the extra HDDs out and getting it working with just the Raptor in there, then adding the other drives once everything else works, as another poster has said.