P5Q Pro

efit2005

efit2005

efit2005

Associate
Joined
5 Oct 2008
Posts
28
Hi all,
I am a noob to computer building so plz bear with me !!
My machine is a P5Q pro asus motherboard, E8500 intel processor, Saphire 4850, 780w QZC power supply, 2gb elixir memory, samsung sata drive, seagate 500gb sata 32mb cache.
Now I have built it all up and applied power, I get the post screen and can enter the bios, I have set the CD rom to boot from and pressed f8 to enter boot sector. The dam thing will not read the media in the drive "windows Xp".
If I put the CD in that came with the board it will read that ok just not the windows, therefore I cannot put an operating system on it.
Both drives by the way are recognised in the Bios and the setting for SATA is on IDE not AHCI.
Anyone had this before?
Thanks in advance.
 
I have had something similar when trying to install XP Pro on a drive that previously had Vista installed on it, or you could be trying to install XP from an OEM disc designed for another make of machine that needs a boot disc to allow the machine to boot and read it. Dell, HP and some Acer machines have recovery discs supplied that look like full install media, but only actually work with a recovery partition on the machine it was supplied with.

Where did you get your XP disc from?
 
Hi WJA96,
Thanks for your time firstly, the disc is an original that does not need a boot floppy as I have used it on my old machine before, (built that myself as well). I have read that maybe I can tranfer the files to a USB stick and load windows from there? I must say the excitement of a new PC is wearing thin now !!
 
Hi,
Yes I can read the disc on another machine. Surely there is someone on here who has had the same scenario? I am wondering if I should purchase vista and try that?
 
I'd try 3 things:

1) Check that the BIOS is set to boot from the CD Drive that your using (you seem 2 have tried this already...)
2) "Borrow" the old computer's CD drive and set that as the boot drive for your newer computer
3) Borrow another xp disc from a friend and try that to boot your computer from, using your own cd key if it works.

If xp refuses to boot from the CD Drive, it is unlikely that vista will make any difference.
 
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Cheers Matt, I was going to try to boot from an ide drive, I have seen lots of probs with this on forums but no one seems to have a direct fix. I must say I am pulling my hair out, I have a new toy and cant play with the dam thing !! Starting to think whether or not I have made the right choice with ASUS?
 
Exact same thing happened to me, switch yer DVD drive to the other Sata controller.
Use any port of the other colour, the left hand side sata ports iirc.
 
Hi Divine, are you refering to the orange and white ports right next to the red sata ports? As I have already moved the sata cable around on the other red SATA ports..
 
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