Hello, I bought a brand new P4 2.4 ghz with 512 mb sdram that I builted myself. Inside my machine, I have bought a Maxtor 80gig 7200rpm with a Asus P4B533 board. Here is the problem: BIOS correctly detect my HD installed on master. I have created a primary partition of 20gig in FAT32 with fdisk. I have also created a 60gig secondary partition with fdisk (also in FAT 32). When I want to install windows xp pro, i choose the option to install windows on my c: folder. After this operation, Windows wants to verify if my c: drive is correct and have any problem. But I cannot install xp pro because I have a message that told me than my HD is defective. So, I ran a microsoft scan disk and he didn't find any bad cluster on my HD. I also ran the Maxtor' Powermax program to scan my HD and he didn't find nothing wrong. I tried several times to install xp on my HD but I have always the same problem (even if I choose NTFS file system). I tried to install Wind 98 Se on my hard drive and it works !!! And I tried to install Xp Pro on my HD located in a other PC and it also works.So, I don't beleive that my HD is defective and the problem is probably on my Asus P4B533 board. Does anybody have any solution to my problem ?

Check the memory. XP is VERY touchy about memory.

Swap the memory with the other machine and see if that works. Rgds.

Try this Now that you have 98 on it. Just upgrade to Xp. Thats all. How were you installing the XP? Try downloading the 6 bootdisk from Microsift website. Insert the Disk 1 at starup. follow the instructions until it asks for the XPCD. Go from there. More so Find Win2000 cd. Install it since it can be install from C Prompt after inserting a boot disk for 98 or The 98 cd itself. Then upgrade from 2000 to XP. OR Not very reliable to start when you have nothing on the HD or Not XP previousle but it might work: Insert the XP Cd at startup it should boot from the CD provided the Boot sequence in SETUP is set to a,CDROM,C or at least CDROM before c. There are several Options to format, create partition etc. But for me if you have 98 on it then upgrade. Good luck and get back to me to know how far it took you.