Hi all,
I have a problem with my hard drive... i think. I'm kinda new to building computers so any help would be appreciated. I just recently upgraded my PC, new cpu, mobo, graphics card, memory, power supply and installed it all in a new case. I used a few old parts from my previous PC, hard drive (the problem), dvd-rom, cd-rom and floppy drive. I got the computer all together with minor difficulties, as this was the first time building a PC on my own. So I pluged the PC up and all seemed to be going well, pc booted ran through start-up, fans turning lights blinking all good...only windows fails to load, so i tried to start in safe mode as the screen had prompted, only to find it still wouldn't load and the same screen prompting me to choose a windows start-up just comes up time after time, try after try. I'm at a loss, I removed the hard drive and dvd-rom, put them in my old pc to see if my hard drive got fried in the transfer...to my suprise the HD still works on the old PC. I can get bios and everything on my new pc, just no windows. Please help...i'v been at this 2 days straight, almost quite litterally. Here's my set-up.

Amd athlon 64 3500+
ASRock 939 dual-sata2
e-GeForce 6800 GT 512MB
Maxtor D740X-6L 80 gig Hard drive
OCZ PowerStream 520W power supply
(2x) Corsair XMS memory 1 gig ea.
Thermaltake Tsunami Dream case

My old set-up was on an Asus A7V8X mobo.

Windows is installed with specific drivers for the mobo you installed it on. When you change mobos without changing those drivers, you get what you got.

Boot with the XP CD and do a repair install. Usually that works.

Safest bet is a reformat reinstall however.

Mike.

I have tried to boot from cd and floppy as well in my previous attempts before this post. I still get the same results, so will is reformating my only option...and go from there? Oh I forgot to mention in my previous post 'm running Win ME.

Oh, WinME? Ick. I don't know WinME that well (I avoided it like the plague). I know Win98 should be able to boot on any mobo because its DOS-based (not exactly causal relationship but close enough for us here), and Win2k is mobo specific like XP, but I don't know about ME. Its an update to 98, so I would have thought it would work similarly.

If you inserted the WinME CD and it didn't boot to the CD you probably need to change your BIOS boot options to boot from CD. If that doesn't work then I think reformat is your best option.

Mike.

Still no joy. I didn't want to reformat so I just bought a new hard drive and i'm having no luck there. It says insert boot software and press any key or something to that effect. Did that and still doesn't load. So i guess my next question is do I have to format that drive first and if so, how do I get to dos to format it?

Hmmm, it sounds like its not booting from the CD. Make sure your BIOS has the boot order set to CD first, then Hard drive. If you have a bootable floppy disc, have the boot order Floppy, CD, HD. You can change that after everything's installed.

You should not have to format the drive first - Windows setup should be able to do that for you. (did in Win98 and Win2k, so I would expect ME to do it too)

Well...did all that, not having any luck, tried all the bios set-ups floppy first, cd first...ect... nothing. Is CMOS in bios?
Found this on another site (pcmech.com), guess i'll try it:

New hard drives need to be prepared before they will work. You will need to configure it and set the CMOS. When you turn the system on, immediately hit the Hot Key sequence necessary to enter CMOS setup. A lot of times, this is Delete. Go to the section on IDE auto-detection, if your BIOS has this option. Follow the prompt under this section and it will auto-detect the drive. If your BIOS does not support this, then you will need to manually plug the necessary information into setup for the drive. When this is done, exit CMOS and save your changes. The system will reboot. Leave the system disk in Drive A:.
When the system completes boot up, it should stop at the A: prompt. Type "fdisk" and hit enter. Follow the prompts to partition the drive.
When FDISK is done, you should be able to switch to the C: drive, or whatever letter the new drive happens to be. Now, all you need to do is format the drive. At the A: prompt, type "format x: /s". Replace "x" with the letter of this new drive. This will proceed to format the drive and copy necessary system files to it. After that, you will be able to boot the system off the new hard drive.
Now you can copy files to it or whatever. If this is to be your main drive, you can install your operating system now.

CMOS *is* the BIOS. They mean totally different things technically, but in this context they mean the same thing.

Those instructions, while still valid, are old. Windows install CDs have automated that process for at least 8 years. (since Win98 if not earlier) If you do decide to follow them, when you format, do NOT use the "/s" flag.

From what I can see of your problem, you have 1 of 3 things wrong:
1) Boot order not correct in BIOS.
2) CD is not bootable. If its an original Windows ME disk (upgrade or not), it is bootable.
3) CD drive not installed right, so its not detecting it.

So, does your system detect the CD drive? It will show that in the POST information screen.

Mike.

The new HDD don't have an OS installed on, so you have to. Newest hardware, like your board, prefer newer OS. So I suggest to get WinXP.

Win ME is not going to work very well on your current setup. But you can try to install it anyway. Just set your CD as the first boot device, and let it boot. Then, you will have the install setup screen and you proceed to install the OS from there. Once the OS is installed, then you'll be able to access your files on the other HDD.

Did you get a SATA HDD?

Well igot winME to boot off floppy, but ME still won't install. I formatted the HD, also ME must have a boot disk, it won't boot from cd...also found that out. However I still have no OS, not sure ME is even compatable with my setup...is that a possiblity? I got the HD to fdisk, format and start to setup ME, but as soon as it has to do the first restart it won't continue to load, it goes to a screen with select start from HD or start from CD. Niether choice gives me any help, start using HD will start like ME is going to start (only it's not fully installed) then goes to a dos screen with just the A:
Start using CD support just starts setup all over again. I am truly puzzled. I'm new to building PC's, but i have reformatted winME more than my share of times and have never had this problem. So I put the new HD in the old PC and it finished loading as it was suppose to on the other PC after it restarted. I let it finish the setup and put it back in the new PC and I am back where I started, windows won't load...

Do yourself a favor and get a modern OS.. WinME is not going to work well on that setup.. well, Win ME is not going to work well on any setup ..

Lesson learned I plan on getting a new OS, however i'd like to know if that is the accual problem, for future reference and i'd hate to get a new OS only to find that wasn't the issue to start with, and still have to troubleshoot further...

Try one last thing before you give up. I "think" that ME cannot recognize more than 512 of RAM. Take out one stick and see if you can install.

If that doesn't do it for you, check out that CD drive in a friend's machine (you don't have to screw it in; hook it up & let it sit outside). Insert something in it to see if it reads.

Sit at that same friend's comp and download software to make an ME boot disc (you'll need a "good", no bad spots, floppy). Make the disc, take it home, boot with it, and fdisk (no switches) and format your hard drive. NOW try the install (remember one stick of memory).

If the drive still balks, get back to me. I'll post a DeBug program to wipe your drive fresh at both primary & secondary boot partitions. That'll really be starting fresh!

I'v ordered a winXP cd, it sounds like from everyone i'v talked to that ME is the problem. If that doesn't work i'll repost...

Just to lest you know that I got the same board yesterday, and this morning, I installed XP on a 40 gigs PATA HDD right on.. Still havent try on a SATA, as I don't have spare SATA drive ready. If you carefully read the small paper sheet that came with your motherboard, they wrote that WinME won't work with SATA2 HDD.. So, while it may work with ME, you won't get the full performance you're expecting from moderm hardware.

Okay, thanks Pat. I'm ordering winXP, so hopefully that'll solve the problem.

What brand of HDD you have?

Installing WinXp is simple. You put the CD in the drive, let is start,and later, you'll be able to partition, format and install XP on your new HDD.

Western Digital 80 gig EIDE hard drive.

You've seen on the drawing that is on the WD hdd that in order to be set as master, without no slave present, that the jumper has to be removed for proper operation...

Advancing to an XP O/S is a good move. Now you can go back to using your Maxtor, as well as the WD drives. Set them up as Master and Slave on the Primary giving you "C" and "D" and transfer the swap file to "D" after you get everything running right. Also put your mail program there and all your documents, music, pictures, etc. If anything gets screwed up on "C", you still have all your stuff.

When you get to the option to partition and format the hard drives during the install, choose NTFS.

Make sure you enable "Automatic Update". XP will do some work on itself.
You will HAVE to setup an Anti-Virus app. I recommend Zone Alarm - it's quiet, neat & clean, easy to configure, and nowhere near as ponderous as Norton or as obtrusive (and it's cheaper). ZA has been great for me on five machines. (I do not work for them, guys. I'm not shilling.)

Buy "Diskeeper" ($20) and defrag bare minimum once a week. Twice is better. The defrag in XP natively is Diskeeper Lite, which I found doesn't do close to what the full program can. Buy "Pest Patrol" from Computer Associates. It's absolutely the best spyware app on the planet (I don't work for them either). Run PP at least every other day.

Do all of this, as well as don't make a mistake on an email attachment, and you should enjoy your life with XP. GOOD LUCK!