Ive got a home built box i am trying to install windows xp pro on and its giving me one heck of a time. Every time i start the windows setup off the xp disk and start to format the hard drive windows setup comes back and tells me that the drive cannot be formated. the xp disk is good and all the hardware in the computer is good, ive tried three different hard drives, same result. Tried 98 boot disk and formatting it with fat32, xp setup says the disk it corrupt, partion magic is no luck either. This problem aslo happens with win 2k. ive also tried seting up xp on its hard drive on another computer and after the first boot back in the problem computer it corrups some key system files. If anyone eles has had this problem or knows a way to fix it, and is willing to help me i would be forever greatful thnx Ryan

Ryan, This is what....the 4th posting for your hdd problem. You had best just trot on down to the local computer store and purchase you a NEW drive. That one is like the Romans..HISTORY. IN THE MATTERS OF STYLE, swim with the current; in matters of principle, STAND LIKE A ROCK

umm... no not quite, this is my first post and the drive is good, it works in other computers just fine, ive also tried 2 other drives in the bad computer that work fine in others also - ohh and by the way ive now also tried changing the IRQ settings and using an old fashion IDE cable apposed to an EIDE cable, if anyone had those ideas help would still be appreciated

what size and brand is the hdd ?

My appologies! Got you confused with someone else. OK, now! Time to fall back to the basics of XP installations. Remove everything that is not needed for installing XP from your computer. All you need is 1 optical drive and 1 HDD and 1 Floppy and 1 Stick of ram (preferably less than 1 gig) NOTHING overclocked and the BIOS set to default settings...anything other than that can cause conflicts resulting in a failed xp installation (especially 1 gig of ram) Since you have had a few failled installs already, I strongly suggest that you use the HDD manufacturer's drive uttility to wipe the drive and reformat it for installation. And while there run chk disc with it to make sure there are no bad clusters at the start of the drive. (regardless of anything) Then after all that set the bios to "1st boot CD-Rom" and see if it takes the set-up then. If it still fails to do anything then the last course of action to me would be to replace the mobo as there is a problem between the bios and IDE connections stopping the drive or reducing the drive speed during set-up proccedures. A bad capacitor can cause such a behaviour by varying the current through the circuitry. Post back and let us know. P.S. I have had a few instances where the optical drive was over reading the installation disc and causeing a failed install. I keep an old 32x cd-rom around to overcome this and the installs went right in. IN THE MATTERS OF STYLE, swim with the current; in matters of principle, STAND LIKE A ROCK

the hard drive is a segate 40 gig, thanks for the info lurkswithin. i'll have to try that, ive tried reseating all the devices but that didnt do anything. im begining to fear that the mobo is dead