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I can't seem to get past the first part of the Windows XP installer. My old hard drive broke and so I bought a new one and installed it. Now, I can put my XP disc in and it will do the first part of set up, but when it says "Checking drive C, this may take several minutes depending on the size of your discs..." It stays at 0% complete and then right away goes to the next page and copies the files. Then it automatically restarts, and nothing has changed, and it repeats the entire process over again. I've used this XP disc before, and I dont know why its not working now with this new hard drive. Please help me!
Maybe a dumb question, but have you formatted the drive?
When all is said and done
More is said than done..
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I have formatted the harddrive many, many, frustrating times, but still after the first set of files have been copied the computer restarts and repeats the whole process over. I never even get to the screen with real graphics, that guides you through the main installatoin.
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OK maybe another dumb question, but have you run the compatability test on XP to see if your machine qualifies to run XP. Minimum RAM 128 / cpu should be 650 or higher, etc.
When all is said and done
More is said than done..
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Ok, maybe another dumb question. When it restarts and says press any key to boot from cd do you press a key. You are NOT suppose to. You should let it continue without pressing a key. Then it boots from the set up files you just copied to the hard drive.
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It seems XP Setup is not detecting the drive. Are you certain the jumper is set correctly? What size is the new drive? Is it bigger than 137gb? If so have you partitioned it into smaller size partitions? Unless your XP disk is a post-SP1 version it may have a problem with large size drives.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him to fish and his wife will never forgive you.
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My new hard drive is a Maxtor 40 GB. I tried to install XP with the jumper in the factory default position, and it didn't work. Next i tried the jumper in the Master position, and still XP would not install. You see, the page that says "Press and key to boot from CD" doesnt come up because it has no existing OS and/or the setup doesn't get that far. I agree, it detects my hard drive, but doesn't detect a C drive. PLEASE HELP!!!
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Is the drive being correctly detected in bios?
Boot into bios and check IDE/drive detection settingsGive a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him to fish and his wife will never forgive you.
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The problem may be with the CD Rom, not the target Maxtor. Was the previous install done from this CD drive or was it already set up? If you can try using another CD drive, at least just to complete the install.
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My computer only has 1 cd drive, and it works because last time i re-installed windows it worked. RICHARD 59, to address your comment, I dont know how to boot into BIOS, im not sure if it even gives me that option. If someone could tell me how to boot into BIOS and then check the hard drive status?...
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How long since the last time you reinstalled?
For BIOS editing during POST you should see a set of options, probably in White text at the bottom of the screen, giving you options to enter setup. Select your language, if prompted, and navigate the menus.
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I re-installed XP one month ago, and it has worked fine. My hard drive recently crashed, so that is why i got this new one. I dont see any option to boot up in BIOS, but i know there is probably somewhere. Can you be any more specific in where i would boot BIOS from? HELP ME ANYONE
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I see your system is HP. Do you have a full instal disk or a HP "Recovery" disk?
Not sure but to enter bios it is sometimes the DEL key or F1, F2, F10. Try some of these during the bootup and see if it gets you there.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him to fish and his wife will never forgive you.
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This computer of mine is my sisters old computer, and since she wasnt the most computer literate person, she prpbably lost the HP restore disc in the first week she had the computer. So nope. Dont have the original restore disc, or even a 98 disc for that matter. thanks for the help in booting to BIOS, let me see if that works...
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Yup. BIOS says that there is no hard drive detected at the master position and the slave postition. Im not sure why it isnt detecting it, but if you can give me a reason, i would greatly appreciate it...
Remember (This is a brand new hard drive, i know it is not broken)
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Might be time to start a new thread with subject "HP (whatever the model) Harddrive not detected in bios"
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day.
Teach him to fish and his wife will never forgive you.
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1.Could be motherboard.
2.Could be cable.
3.Could be hard drive.
How do you know your hard old hard drive crashed? Did it stop spinning? Does the new hard drive spin up when computer is started? Maybe the problem with the first hard drive wasn't the hard drive that's how come the new one doesn't work either. Also just because it's new doesn't mean for sure that it works.
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Try this (you will need a working computer)
go to www.maxtor.com and download powermax a diagnostic for the hardrive and maxblast 3 which is a program to prepare and setup the hard drive
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man.... all u need to do is set the drive up for primary master then go to the bios and have it registered then, restart pc, then put the stupid windows disc in cdrom upon post. hit enter to boot from cd, if the drive ant partition no wory. the new bootable windows is designed for newbs, all u got to do is use entire disk and set windows on the wanna be NFS called NTFS then let it do it thing. if ur still havin problem do the old fashion expert way of partioning by using fdisk and then format C: then try to reinstall.
There is no place like 127.0.0.1
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lol you couldnt even boot into windows cd xp if u your bios didnt even detect a primary HD. so the problem mostly lies with the filesystem and the format, but u dont have to format it manually windows is designed for newbs which makes it really easy to install. or maybe billgates havnt done a good job for the newbs/
There is no place like 127.0.0.1
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ALright alright, first of all, how do I make the hard drive active, and second of all, how do i register the hard drive? I think this may be a mother board problem, because no matter what i do i cannot get the hard drive detected.
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KKUdris,
You are absolutely right!!! If the bios doesn't see the hard drive, Windows has no chance to. It is a hardware problem. No matter what, every time I put in a hard drive the bios detects it unless there is something wrong with the hard drive, cables, motherboard. It doesn't matter if the hard drive is formatted nfs, ntfs, fat, fat32, or wxyz, or not at all, the bios should see it. If it doesn't you have a hardware problem. The only other 1 in a 100 chance is if the bios firmware is messed up. But it probably is not. Do you have another hard drive to try or cables to start eliminating things. Or you could take the hard drive out and put it in the computer you are using right now to see if the hard drive works in it. You don't have to install or anything on it just put it in as slave and see if the bios detects it in this computer.
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This is the trouble with long threads, it's too easy to lose track of what's been said and done. I think Richard59 is correct in saying a new thread might be appropriate...however.....
Curious to know how, if the drive isn't being detected in the BIOS you can say in your second reply...
"I have formatted the harddrive many, many, frustrating times" ?
PS " the stupid windows disc"
The windows disc is an inanimate object and therefore incapable of being stupid!....lol
Your problem is another's solution:
Your solution will be another's problem:
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I FIXED IT!!! BIOS didnt detect it so i changed the BIOS settings to Auto (Detect) and guess what, the hard drive got detected. The HP guys didnt even tell me that, because i e-mailed their tech support about a million times. Thank you all for all the help though, it came in handy
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