High tech computer problem

Factual Questions
1

So Im building a new computer from scratch… new everything. I insert XP home and start up. Looks like its preparing to install. At this point I decide to abort because my hard drive light wasnt comming up. Thats not a serious problem, I just reverse the LED connector for the hard drive. I go to reboot and I get a “Verifying DMI pool data”. At which point it just haults.

Im sure the connections are secure. My CD-Rom is master and my hard drive is slave. I have reset the Cmos to default settings and still nothing. Any ideas? I’ve tried everything I can think of.

2

Look around in the BIOS for a setting called “Force Update ESCD Data.” Enable it. If this doesn’t solve the problem, I think you have a defective motherboard.

3

Not related to the question…but you should switch the master and slave settings…IIRC, it’s always better to have the faster device as master.

4

Alereon, I am 99% sure its my Western Digital drive. For some reason the BIOS cant see the hard drive.

GorilliaMan, I might try that once I get things sorted out.

5

Is there some reason you have your hard drive and CD-ROM on the same IDE controller? It’s better and easier to put the HD on the primary controller and the CD-ROM on the secondary and set them both to Master (or Single Drive if they have that option). Check to make sure that the hard drive shows up in CMOS setup before you start booting from the XP CD.

6

My two cents:

The HDD needs to be on the primary IDE channel, and it needs to be set to master (or cable select).

If possible, attach the other devices to the secondary IDE channel and leave the HDD alone on channel #1.

Reformat that HDD and start your XP installation over with a clean partition.

Set your boot sequence in BIOS to look at the CD drive first for the boot-strap commands on the WinXP disk.

If you have a ZIP drive attached, remove it and disable the IDE channel it was using. If not, Windows XP will give it the C: drive letter assignment during installation. As a result, your HDD will get the D:. While this isn’t the end of the world, it can potentially cause problems down the road.

7

Yes, definately put the harddrive as Master on IDE 1 and the CD’s on IDE 2. I would then reformat the drive, reset the BIOS (make sure the battery is out) and try the installation again. Here is link to some possible fixes as well.

8

Success! I have put the Hard Drive and CD-ROM\DVD on seperate IDE connectors as many of you have suggested. The HD wouldnt work on master so I placed the jumper in an unnamed spot, between Master and Pm2. That seemed to do the trick there.

Then I went to Western Digitals website and downloaded there Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS. After that it was a piece of cake formatting and installing the O/S. Thanks for the suggestions :slight_smile: