I posted this question on the wrong forum and don't know how to delete it so I'm gonna try to post it here: Hi, I have a big problem. Recently my hard drive became corrupted with errors that I had to reformat the drive. it was originally running on windows 95 but since i have a windows xp cd i thought i could install xp instead. Specs originally was 32sdram, Pentium 2 at 233MHz, 2Gb hard drive (somehow I can't access the other 2Gb on this 4Gb hard drive). so I bought a 128sdram card to meet the minimum requirements. I received my new memory by mail and installed it but my computer only seems to read up to 64Mb when its starts up (motherboard limit?). I try using my 80 Gb hard drive with windows xp already installed (from a different computer)but the computer does not recognized this 80Gb hard drive, I've used HD detection and came up with nothing. The motherboard still recognizes my original hard drive (that I formatted)and every thing is fine until i get a screen that reads take out floppy disk or other media and press enter, I don't have any "media" in either drive, so I'm stuck on this black screen I might have to pay someone to fix it, which might cost more then what the the computer is worth. I inserted windows xp cd into the cd drive hoping that it will autostart and install but won't run, even when I change the boot error. The werid thing is that it dectected the winxp cd months ago but popped up a screen saying that I needed more memory to run and install it. BTW-I think I connected the power to the floppy drive wrong because it start smoking like it was burning so I quickly detached the power, now I'm afraid of messing up again so my computer is now gathering up dust in my room. If anyone can help me I'll appeacite it. Is this a windows problem or hardware since windows xp won't run?

You have a pretty old motherboard if it has a Pentium2. You could try a BIOS update and see if that gets you any farther along, but you should really get new (or at least 'newer') hardware to run WinXP.

Yes, my computer is 7 years old, its my first computer and don't want it to become useless so I’m trying to give it a decent upgrade. The 80Gb hard drive is from my second computer and is running Xp but it is not recognized (someone posted that my motherboard might support only up to 40Gb)how do I get this BIOS update? I guessing I dl it from online but from what site and will it really help, like recognize my 128Mb sdram and a 80 Gb hard drive?

try rebooting the computer and when that black screen appears, press F2 and check if drivers or components are turned on.

Do I really need the floppy drive to be on to start wndows? The drives are ok, its just that I disconnected by floppy drive because of what happen before.

You don't need the floppy to boot, but many pcs are set to halt on boot if they don't find the floppy. There is usually an option to continue or enter setup (bios). To get the bios update, check the pc or motherboard manufacturer's website. You should be able to find a program that will create a bootable floppy with the bios update on it.

Maybe I missed something in your post but, your motherboard may not support XP. Did you check? Your computer is 7 years old.