help with new pc (windows installation issues)

[hikaru452]

hiya, i have just built a new pc for my sister and i can not get windows xp to install in the machine, the specs of the machine are below

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB GDDR3 HDTV/Dual DVI
AMD Athlon 64 4000+ San Diego (Socket 939)^
OcUK Value 2GB (2x1GB) PC3200 184pin DDR Memory Dual Channel Kit
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Sound Card (from old rig)
DFI LanParty NF4 SLI-DR (Socket 939) PCI-Express Motherboard
2x western digital IDE HDDs*
1x seagate 7200.2 IDE HDD*
pioneer 109 IDE*
corsair 520W PSU
*from old pc
^this was the cpu i was intending to use in my rig but got a E6300 at a later date so was spare
i have tried resetting the cmos and using a single stick of ram, memtest also ran without a problem (i stopped it after 20 minutes).
with the installation i get to *** point when resetting *** pc is needed then can not finish the installation. i have no problems getting into the bios

 

[BillytheImpaler]

with the installation i get to *** point when resetting *** pc is needed tehn can not finish the installation.

Can you be more specific with this?

 

[hikaru452]

when the red bar appears saying your pc will reset in 15 seconds (hope this will help)

 

[Moredhel]

Have you set the boot order to try and boot from the hard drive that you're installing to? It should be second in the order after your CD/DVD Rom drive.

 

[hikaru452]

i had the cd drive as first piority and ide hdds as second (as far as i can remember)

 

[BillytheImpaler]

So you get to the reboot stage, it reboots, but begins the first stage again? Try removing the installation CD after it reboots. If it works and it boots off of the hard disk it will simply ask for you to insert the CD again.

 

[hikaru452]

it gets past the first stage, reboots then attempts to go to the second stage only to encounter an error message (about something missing or corupt(will post error message later, cant get to pc at the moment). i have attempted to run the first stage of the installation more then once (formatting every time) and still it did not work (same error message every time)

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Perhaps the Windows disk is bad. Try the disk on another machine or try another disk in this machine.

 

[hikaru452]

the disc works fine as i tried it on another machine and a have also tried a different disk in that machine, the result was the same problem but different error message. the second disk also worked in another machine.