new hard drive problems

i have an emachine that got a virus & locked up the pc my buddy removed the hd & was going repair it well that didn't work out so i went to buy a new hd & bought a seagate 320 gig serial connection
this pc has both serial & paralllel connection that i can see i dont know if it was originally hooked up with the parallel cable but i think it was, but anyways i bought the serial connection cause it is faster according to tiger direct ..when i try to boot up i get this mess
PXI-E61:MEDIA TEST FAILURE , CHECK CABLE
PXE MOF- EXITING PXE ROM
DISK BOOT FAILURE , INSERT SYSTEM DISK & PRESS ENTER
i have a recovery disk that i tried & get that mess, i all so have a copy of windows xp that i have loaded in my other pc & that worked well, but i get the above mess as well with the xp copy
i need some help in trouble shooting this so if someone could please give me some sugg. i would appreciate it ...thanks

 

Just to be clear, you have a new hard drive - so you have to reinstall XP.
Can you not put the XP disk in when it asks for it;
( "DISK BOOT FAILURE , INSERT SYSTEM DISK & PRESS ENTER ")
or go into the BIOS and tell it to boot from the drive with the Windows installation disk?

 

thanks for the reply ...yes it is a new hd that i put in my 2 year old pc ..i have tried turning on the pc with xp in cd rom & have tried to insert it when it asks & i get the same results , i have it so it boots up with the cd rom same thing ...one thing is sometimes i can get it to start loading ...SET UP IS LOADING FILES & then you can see at the bottom of the screen the files being loaded after a min it will stop or i get mess FILE SETUPDD.SYS COULD BE LOADED THE ERROR CODE IS 4 i am totally confused on how i can get this going do you think it is the new hd or is something wrong in the bios cause i dont know if my buddy played with the bios to try to fix the pc ..thanks

 

Because of that error (which seems to refer to a problem with RAM memory) I would download the 'Memtest86' ISO image and burn it to a CD, boot from it and let it run for a time to verify that the RAM is good.



http://www.memtest86.com/download.html

 

thanks dude you were right on with the ramone 512 stick was bad ...now that i have fixed that problem im ready to start...just want to be sure with this it asks ..to set up windows xp on selected item press enter
to creat a partition in the unpartition space press C
im thinking C am i right on this ...thanks

 

Sounds good - I would ask for my old hard drive back too - probably nothing wrong with it.

 

man i was so close i used the recovery cd that cam with the pc everything went good looked like i finally did it then @ the end it said to remove the cd when pc reboots so i removed it @ this time still looking botting up with windows logo then for some reason it reboots instead of going to desk top it reboots comes up saying something like we apologize for the inconvience but windows didnot start up successfully blah blah blah have options of safe mode or windows normal , it doesnt matter what i pick it always reboots & goes through the same crap ..i forgot to mention when it first boots up e machine logo is on & in the bottom right corner boot menu pressF10 & press F2 bios settings

 

To see if there is a corrupt file.

If you select windows safe mode can you put the cd in and (start, run, cmd) and type sfc /scannow


or safe mode with only a command prompt c:\ put the cd in and type sfc /scannow


If you cannot get to the command prompt (it reboots) or nothing shows on the scan, then run the memtest again.
or remove the new ram and try to install XP with just the one good old stick - possibly the new stick is being rejected for whatever reason.

 

i would like to try to reinstall xp with the one ram (512)in the pc...i have xp already in it so i need to know how to remove the existing os & reinstall it again ...thanks

 

Boot from the CD and proceed to install XP, it wipes the HD.

 

The error is not a memory error.
The computer is attempting to boot from the network.
You need to put your recovery CD in the drive and then reboot.

 

i did the memory test & its ok ..you say to put the recovery disc back in, dont i have to remove the existing os if not do i just let it reinstall everything again...thanks

 

If it is a new hard drive there is no OS installed.
Just let the recovery CD replace everything.
Most recovery CDs will format the hard drive so anything
that you may have copied to the drive will be erased.

 

yes it is a new hard drive i bought fri but had a lot of trouble installing xp found out the ram was the problem , replaced the ram & all seemed to be okay as far as installing the recovery disc ..tokk about about 2 hours everything was installed when it finished it went to the normal screen with the window logo so i thought everything was good but then it rebooted on its own & starts with the emachine logo & on the bottom left to press f10 to boot up or f2 for bios if i leave it it just keeps going through the same sequence over & over ...so what i want to do is remove the existing os & reinstall it & hopefully that will fix the problem

 

ok i reformatted the hd reinstalled using the recovery disc , & still the same problem , it just cant get past the windows logo its stops there & reboots ...is there a setting in the bios or somewhere that is preventing it from starting ...thanks

 

Tell the bios to boot from the HD.

 

download the demo of "paragon justboot corrector", it comes in a self burning file (just unrar it instead) burn the ISO to a CD with nero. Boot the computer with that cd, look at your drive letters. Make sure your system partition is c: drive or whatever it was on your original drive.

What you describe sounds like a "drive letter changed" problem. When the computer is booting up and cannot find the next startup files needed to complete the boot (because it's looking for them in the wrong drive), it will go into rebooting loop.

The Demo won't fix your computer but it will hopefully narrow your troubleshooting. If you discover that the drive letter has been changed, just changing it back will usually get your computer to boot up all the way.

demo here
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/downloads/JustBoot_Boot_Corrector_38938_p/

 

i tried a copy of windows xp black that i downloaded from the net & installed it & all is working now except one thing error come up @ the start saying FMOD COULDN'T INITILIZE DIRECT SOUND..SOUND DEVICE
MMBUILDER WILL RUN WITHOUT SOUND SUPPORT ERROR INITILIZING OUTPUT DEVICE
so all i need now is to get the sound back if anyone could help me out please

 

the model is T6524 emachine ...im sure the problem is the xp disc cause i installed it in 2 diferent pc & both have that problem ...is there a programme to install so i can get the sound working...yhanks