I just set up a new PC without a problem. It has an intel mb 850EMV2 with a 2.4Ghz processor. I have put a new HDD Maxtor 80Gb. I partitioned the drive into two and formatted the C drive to NTFS by using XP CD. The system completes the first phase of the install without a problem. When the PC reboots it gives the following error: "Boot Failure:System Halt" Is this due to bad sectors on the HDD? Or is this something to do with the BIOS or Memory. Please Help how to go about installing the OS on this new machine.

Just out of interest, when the system is re-booting, ur not pressing a key to boot from the disk again are u ?? If not, then try re-formatting and copy the whole i386 directory from the XP CD to ur hard drive (do this via a Win98 startup disk and run smartdrv first). When done, navigate to C:\i386 and run winnt.exe GoodLuck

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307848

Its possible that the ICH2 chipset that controls your HDD may not have a driver in the windows install. If your motherboard came with a floppy disk, press F6 during install when windows asks for 3rd party devices and see if that floppy gives you an option to install drivers.