I got a computer I'm building. It's got an Intel Lite-On Motherboard (I'm poor) 1.8 ghz Celeron Processor. 512mb Kingston Hyper-X 400mhz DDR. 40 gb hd (it's all I need for now) and a bootable copy of Windows XP Pro. Though I don't need boot disks, I have those too. I installed windows onto my harddrive using a different computer. It ran fine. I took it and after I set the jumpers on my new motherboard, I installed it only to get the following prompt during start up... "searching for boot record from IDE 0... o.k Disk read error Occured Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart" When I boot from floppy- "searching for boot record from floopy a:... setup is initializing Setup cannot copy the following file ":\bios" somethin' When I boot from CD... the installation starts, the drive is already formatted to FAT32.... It's copies the files and says it's gonna reboot and setup will resume. It reboot, BUT instead of setup resuming, it goes back to "searching for boot record from CD... o.k." "Press any key to boot from CD" - and it goes back through the aforementioned process. All I wanna do is set up my computer and get it running so that I can continue producing with FRUITY LOOPS PRODUCER EDITION and kill fellow UT and UT2K3 players. Is that such a crime? My mother board (supposedly) came with the drivers installed. However, they said should I have any problem, there is a 'bootable' cd for the mother board included with it and to re-install the drivers and stuff. (and something about SCSI driver for new hard drives or somethin?)<-- possible prob... but not even the bootable disk they gave me boots. can ANYBODY help me? Please please tell me, what should I do. (sounds like a Dear Ann column)
Make sure u set them correctly When it shows that, DONT press any key just leave it and it will move on and boot off the harddrive. You mean latest available firmware?
I'll check everything you said, but on the last one. When I leave it alone to let it boot off the hard drive is when I recieve the "disk read error occured" message. you think the hard drive isn't plugged in all the way? does my mother board need any scsi drivers? I'll let you know what happens when I double back over what i've done but the disk read error is my main problem.
I've had an almost identical problem before and it was actually bad memory. If you have 2 sticks of memory you should try booting the computer with only 1 at a time. If it works with one and not the other return the one that doesn't work. If you only have 1 stick you will obviously either have to use different memory to test with or test that memory in a different machine. You could also try going into your CMOS Setup and making sure the memory latency is set to the lowest setting. The possible settings for DDR are usually 2, 2.5, or 3 and 3 is the lowest (safest) setting. It's also possible that the problem is the IDE cable the drive is on. If you have an old fashioned ribbon cable instead of a round (bundled) cable for the data cable it can be broken very easily when you are installing it. You might want to try replacing that cable.
Good call with the memory! The thought came to me (as it has happened to me before).... you can also check the memory by disabling the fast bootup sequence.... the system will then go through the memory and check it for ya
The memory! yeah that's totally true. PC 133 wouldn't work on mine. Froze when i tried to boot XP. Froze during the time when it has that split up bar (right before the logo). PC 100 works fine. I know, got an old ass computer. But anyway make sure the memory isn't too fast.
Good point Praetor. In fact it's not a bad idea to just look for an option to set the BIOS to Fail Safe Defaults and see what happens (but I'd try the memory first).
O.k. I tried the memory thing and I'm a little confused. I read the manual to the mother board and it says somethin about "SDRAM DDR" wtf! I thought it was either Sdram OR DDR but it puts'em together like they're one in the sam, and I KNOW BETTER. Anyway, during the boot sequence it lists the memory as DDR. It detects it and I even disabled the quickboot like you said and sat and watched the numbers add up...---> So, that means the memory is GOOD right!? I disconnected the cables and took my time reconnecting them and resetting slaves and masters, masters and slaves and nothing happened. Same ol message disk read error. I appreciate all of you who have helped me and I thank you. Those of you fed up with the ordeal... I don't blame ya
I know this sounds funny, but try booting without the cd plugged in. Every once in a while my A7N8X deluxe will fail to see the hard drive. The system will go through all the post procedeurs and hang, but will boot normally with the cd unplugged.
OH MY.... EVERYBODY WHO RESPONDED TO THIS, LOOK AT HOW STUPID THE PROBLEM WAS. HOW LONG AGO WAS THIS POST POSTED? COMPARE THAT TO THURSDAY OF THIS WEEK WHEN I FIGURED IT OUT. The reason why it wasn't working: omfg Windows XP wouldn't install properly when I selected the hard drive to be formatted as a full NTFS partition. It would only work under NTFS Quick. What kind of crap is that? I was sitting there, and I was like, "one more time and that's it", This time when I started the installation, I decided, "Hmm, I guess I'll do a Quick NTFS partition" and it was smooth sailing from there. How? I don't know. Am I going to try to know? NO WAY So all of you people who responded with every solution possible, join me in adding this BS answer to the books. And thanks
Im glad you got it working... although a peculiar solution indeed. BTW when you buy "DDR ram" from a store or whatever you are actually buying "DDR SDRAM" (sometimes written "SDRAM DDR"). The "fullname" for the "SDRAM" you are thinking of is "SDR SDRAM" (aka SDRAM SDR). SDRAM - Plain old PC33, PC66, PC100, PC133, PC142, PC150, PC166 SDR SDRAM - "Single Data Rate SDRAM" - the same thing as SDRAM (marketing ploy) DDR SDRAM - "Double Data Rate SDRAM": PC1600, PC2100, PC2700, PC3200, PC3500, PC4200 DDR RAM - Same thing as DDR SDRAM
I know it's too late to help now, but I just realized what your problem probably was. I actually ran into something similar years ago with Windows NT 4. It may be that Windows XP didn't have a driver for the IDE controller on the MB that would work correctly. In the case of NT 4 (and 2000) the solution I had found was to format ahead of time with a Windows 98 boot disk and then install on the existing partition without reformatting. In any case I'm glad to see you got it working and I'll definitely file this one away for future use.
Isnt it to do with the fact that you installed your operating system onto your hard drive using another computer?? Did you seriously expect it to work after doing that. It never works when the OS has been installed by another board and bios. You need to reninstall it using the current system.
Actually I was referring to a fresh install of NT 4 Terminal Server. The problem was a RAID card that wasn't supported under NT4 without SP3 or higher. Unfortunately finding that information on the IBM website was next to impossible. What happened in that case was that the installer would create the partition with unused space at the beginning instead of the end of the drive and then try to boot from the unpartitioned space at the beginning of the drive. A student of mine had the same problem installing 2000 on a computer made in 2001 and when she tried my solution (partition and format before installing) it worked fine. As far as moving from one MB to another, or more accurately one chipset to another, it's true that you can't do this on NT4 because the specific chipset drivers (or Hardware Abstract Layer) are required to boot the OS in the first place, and can't ever be changed without a reinstall. For 2000 and XP it's not that cut and dried. I had to move an entire class of 25 people running 2000 from one computer lab to another one with newer computers. About a quarter of the computers did fine with the new hardware and the rest had to be reinstalled. After XP came out I had 2 students who brought their XP drives from home to school on a regular basis. The computers in my classroom were running P3 processors, but neither student had a P3 at home (I think 1 was an Athlon and 1 was a P4) and neither had any problems. I don't recommend this but it can be done - sometimes. Regardless of this, KaneeMan's computer wasn't just having problems with moving from 1 system to another. He also couldn't get through the install and he seemed to have problems with the drive controller and the chipset on the MB is definitely newer than XP if it supports DDR 400 memory. All of which leads me to believe the XP installer was likely having problems with the chipset, most likely with the hard drive controller.
Oriphus.... oriphus Pay attention. Installing it from another computer was my only alternative to see if there was a problem with my hard drive and not with my computer. Point No. 2: I've swapped hard drives and computers many times and never had a problem. So I actually did expect it to work. I attempted to install it fresh several times, and even after purging the hd. That didn't work, neither did anything else, until I saw that I hadn't selected a "quick Ntfs" partition over a regular "Ntfs". Why it would work under quick and not the other, I don't know, however it's fixed now and your late questions are irrelevent and were irrelevent before I even posted the problem. Thanks fellas, I appreciate all your help. This site is a lot more helpful than I thought it would be.
Easy now... lol BTW Oriphus... most versions of windows (with the exception of NT as mentioned) support complete hardware changes within a reboot or two (provided you have the drivers of course).
