help, new mobo and can't boot.

barringtoast · 5 Feb 2007 at 09:31

i just bought a new motherboard,proc,ram bundle. the mobo only has one IDE slot and i have a dvd writer and 2 ide harddrives i need to install. i know i'm going to need to buy a sata hdd (which i have), but i have been unable to install xp on my old ide hdd whilst it's connected to my new mobo. does it need to be a sata hdd for me to be able to install a new os?

i connected my dvd writer and ide hdd to the single ide connector on the mobo, set the bios to boot from cd-rom 1st, then hdd, but when i booted it all up with the xp disk in the dvd drive it just goes through the POST and then hangs, displaying this message "verifying pool data........... success"

please help, are there any bios or cmos settings i need to do in order for it to boot up properly?

cheers

rpstewart · 5 Feb 2007 at 10:18

Have you got the jumpers on the disk and DVD set correctly, ie disk as master and DVD as slave?

barringtoast · 5 Feb 2007 at 10:24

i'll go and check for you........

barringtoast · 5 Feb 2007 at 10:43

yeah my jumpers are set so my HDD is master and my DVDwriter is slave, does it matter which of the two ide plugs go in either the master or slave device?

barringtoast · 5 Feb 2007 at 10:51

more info:

it recognises the devices in the bios/cmos as the master and slave respectively.

the hdd i'm trying to use already has xp on, but i'm trying to wipe it and load xp on again. does the disk need to be wiped before?

the cd i'm using id definitely a bootable xp disk as i've used it before on my old mobo, but it wont load from the cd-rom on my new one

should i just wait till i get my sata hdd and use that instead?

rpstewart · 5 Feb 2007 at 11:21

You can install on a drive which has been used, the install program will try to format the drive unless you tell it otherwise.

What's the boot order set to in the BIOS? Should be CD followed by HDD.

barringtoast · 5 Feb 2007 at 17:27

cheers, yeah i've set the boot order to cd-rom then hdd, it recognises them in that order on the post but hangs aver the verifying pool data.

i also bought a Gig of ram to go with the bundle (it only came with 512), the bundle is sold as preinstalled proc+mem and fully tested, could my extra ram be the problem? i thought they were compatible, these are the specs of the ram:

preinstalled with bundle:

512MB 1RX8 PC2-4200U-444-12

mem i bought (from same supplier, will not mention who, rules is rules):

1GB 533MHZ CL4 PC2-4200U-444

i only understand the 512 and 1gb parts, are these ram compatible?

ta

rpstewart · 5 Feb 2007 at 18:17

Simple way to find out is to yank the new RAM out and see what happens.

barringtoast · 5 Feb 2007 at 21:19

well i've got a new case on the way as well as a new sata hdd and a new dvd-writer, i'll throw it all in the mixer and give it some serious troubleshooting. hopefully next week some time.

cheers for the feedback.