I just bought an ESC motherboard/AMD Dual Core Processor set for my computer. When I started the computer it recognized everything. It stated it could not find the BIOS file. I can access the BIOS and change the settings, but it won't load the OS. Do I need to boot the computer with a recovery disk or my Win XP disk? I'm not the most computer savvy person, so please be kind. Thanks Tim

Does XP start to load and then give the error or does it not get that far? If XP starts to load then it's an OS problem and you may need to do a recovery or reinstallation. Did it give a specific name for the file it couldn't find?

It doesn't get to the OS. I am at work and can't remember the exact error message. I will post that later. I think it may be the BIOS settings not looking for the OS on the HD, instead looking in a different area. I read some of the postings in here and found that to be a common problem when changing motherboards. Could I be on the right track?

I'm not familiar with a bios error stating it can't find a bios file, but then I'm not familiar with the motherboard you have either. Of the many files that an operating system will load, some will have the word 'bios' in their name. That's why I thought it may be an OS and not a bios problem. If you google the exact message you may get more info. If you have changed the motherboard but are still using the same hard drive it's most likely an OS problem. XP is very stubborn about changes like that and usually won't boot up if it see a different motherboard.

I suspect the message you are getting is related to the "Promise (RAID controller) BIOS, and you should be able to disable it from your main system BIOS. In any case, you need to revisit the issue when you get home, much easier that trying to troubleshoot this type of issue from work.

Did you swap the board & use a HDD that already has XP installed on it? If so, there's your problem. You need to do a "repair install"

I think Sabertooth is on the right track. If there is RAID controller built into your mboard, support for it is built into the mboard bios. On a computer I have, Asus A7V133, the first message I see after the usual table of settings is a line "Ultra 100 Bios Version 2.01... ....Promise Technology..... then Detecting with a rotating bar beside it In my case, there is no hard drive connected to it, so it then says: Ultra 100 Bios is not installed because there is no drive attached. Then the computer continues to boot normally. The mboard has two pairs of IDE connectors, two IDE controllers, and no drive is connected to the Promise controller. ...... If you are using a hard drive that already had a Windows installation on it that was installed when the hard drive was in another computer, as DAVEINCAPS said, Windows XP often will not boot when it encounters a drastic change in hardware. As jam suggested, do an repair install, specifically, an XP Repair Setup. How to do an XP Repair Setup, step by step: http://www.windowsreinstall.com/win... An XP Repair Setup will not harm your existing Windows installation. If your Windows CD did not have SP1 or SP2 included, and you updated to SP1 or SP2, you will probably have to install that again to get SP1 or SP2 working properly again.