ok heers the story i got a new hard drive and my computer wouldnt start so i got a new PSU and put it in there and then i put my new HD in and it booted up fine then windows xp detected it and like 30 seconds later it came up with the blue skreen o deth saying that there was problem with ntfs.sys so i restart and then try again... same problem. so i go and unplug the new HD and then nothing happens... now i try and boot up and my monitor turns on with its green light thing then goes back to orange... its sleep mode but the fans are going and it trys to boot up but then it stops. so i took the fan off the processor and it looks like the processor scratched off the heatsink in that 1 area where its sposed to be and im just wondering if i fried it again.... cuz if i did im f---ed... processor is athlon xp 1.6 ghz

A couple of questions for you: What was the reason for getting the new drive? Upgrade? or did something happen to the other one? Are you certain you had the new drive setup properly? Jumper set to master? If it's a Western Digital, there are separate jumper settings for Master, or Master w/slave. Considering this problem appears to have something to do with your HDD, why would you take the HSF off the CPU? That's like having a flat tire & removing the carburator...lol! I'm not sure what you mean by "the processor scratched off the heatsink"? Are you referring to the thermal pad? That will have to be completely removed, the heatsink & CPU core will have to be cleaned, & new thermal material will have to be applied. DON'T run without it! Here are some excellent instructions on how to apply paste, no matter what brand you use: http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm Put it back together, make sure your jumpers are set properly, ClearCMOS, & start from scratch.

i got the new hard drive cuz i was running out of room on my old one. and it is set to slave i just think its not formatted right cuz ive screwd with windows xp so much that it cant auto format it... il just set it to the master and install windows 2000 and format it that way... what i mean by the processor scratched off the heatsink is that its the solid pink heatsink thats on the fan... theres a little square where it was. and i know not to run without heatsink... i juss dont have any at the moment i was just wondering if it could be anything else other than the processor

I don't know what other IDE devices you have, but here's what I recommend: Prim master = HDD w/OS Prim slave = CD or DVD drive 2ndary master = burner 2ndary slave = 2nd HDD Boot into windows, then format your 2nd HDD from there...

yeah but when windows tried to format it, it crashed... my secondary master is the second HD

Disconnect your secondary HDD. Leave the jump pin out (all pins open) in the Western Digital Master Drive. Try to format and install WinXP.