Xp pro sp2 install - need a little help

-Laser- · 8 Oct 2006 at 13:04

trying to put xp on my pc (not the one i'm on now), it runs through the first stage (booting off cd) but when i restart it won't boot from the hd at all, it just sits on the boot from cd bit (no disc in drive), wiht the hd set as 2nd boot device. i don't get it at all, i've tried 2 different xp cds, i think i even tried it from within 2k (will be a dual boot), and also with the 2k hd unplugged so it's just a blank hd! any advice, or anything i'm obviously doing wrong?

Zefan · 8 Oct 2006 at 13:05

Tried setting the HD as the only boot device?

-Laser- · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:03

yup. do i need to do anything to the drive at all? it's formatted and partitioned (ntfs for both)

Zefan · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:05

If it's a SATA drive then no, if it's IDE then you may have to sort some jumpers out.

ns400r · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:05

And is the hard drive a SATA device ? If it is have you elected to install the drivers for it during the initial phase of the Windows setup

Zefan · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:09

ns400r said:
And is the hard drive a SATA device ? If it is have you elected to install the drivers for it during the initial phase of the Windows setup

He said he installed it on the drive already. If he hadn't installed the drivers the windows disc wouldn't even have detected the drive.

ns400r · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:12

Zefan said:
He said he installed it on the drive already. If he hadn't installed the drivers the windows disc wouldn't even have detected the drive.

I'll leave you to it then!

Zefan · 8 Oct 2006 at 18:16

ns400r said:
I'll leave you to it then!

ummmm

-Laser- · 8 Oct 2006 at 19:58

sorry, it's ide. there are 3 drives total:

1: SATA with 2k on it (also a redundant 98 partition)
2: SATA with just data (backup)
3: IDE with XP

the IDE disk does work, i can read and write to it from within 2k, and there is a second partition on it that i use for storage. Does it matter if the xp partition is primary or logical? tbh it's been ages since i've really done an install of windows.

would like to try it on one of the sata drives, but i have no driver disk for the SATA, or a floppy drive handy. Thanks for the replies and suggestions so far

Zefan · 8 Oct 2006 at 20:01

If it's a disk with service pack 2 I think some sata drivers are included but I'm not sure. Give it a go, the worst case is that it doesn't detect your sata drives.

Not sure about logical/primary partitions at all, the only experience I've had with them is from a fresh format where I have windows as C then the rest as D, E, F etc :\

-Laser- · 8 Oct 2006 at 20:26

this one is SP1, the other disc i had possibly had sp2 with it, think my brother put together a disc that included sp2, but it wasn't sp2 originally (if that makes sense?)

-Laser- · 9 Oct 2006 at 15:21

i just tried modifying the boot.ini on the 2k partition to include xp, when i tried booting this way it basically locked up, screen went into standby and lights in the mouse all went off. arrgh! i hate computers!!!