I just bought a new ECS momboard (l4s8a2) and a new WD 120gb drive. Win XP will neither install nor load. Windows 98 works fine. I have tried several different drives and configurations. The WD 120gb was empty when I started but when installing XP would lock up at the "setup is now starting windows" blue screen. Help please!

Your Western Digital drive may need to be prepared first with the Data Lifegaurd tools. If it did not come with the floppy disk, you can read about and download from:
http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp

Chris - thanks. What type of preparation? I have tried other hard drives that already have XP installed and they won't boot either...each case the boot process halts at a certain point...it's really frustrating..

Lets not assume you have set the bios to locate the HD first since you now have a new MB.

There may be other configurations you need to make to your MB as well in order for it to accomodate your CPU speed.

In the event that you haev not done so already - read the book.

You might have to swap out a bad stick of Ram for this problem?

Maybe your XP CD has a big old scratch on it since you last used it?

That HD might need WG formating but a simple boot disk and Fdisk should do it.

Good luck

Greaner

Bob:

Since our motherboard and hard drive are compatible with each other you should not need to install anything from the Western Digital floppy, or partition using it's drive overlay software. Since you were able to install Windows 98 the hardware and CMOS configuration is setup correctly. To me it is unclear where you were during the install that it gave you the error. If it got beyond the point where XP install allows you to partition, format and select the file system to be used, then I suggest you reload with the XP CD and at the point where you can manipulate the partitions, delete all partitions on the drive, repartition and try the install again.