I recently got a new mobo, A7N8X, and a new hard drive. My old hard drive will not boot and I tried installing windows on the new one, but that will not run either. What to do?

Welcome to the PC Guide Forum.

It is going to be difficult to help you from the scanty information you have provided. Please post your system specs: motherboard, CPU, memory, hard disk, video, Windows version, etc.

Then try to restate your question giving as much detail as possible.

When you tried to boot with your old drive what exactly happened. How far into the boot process did the computer go. Did anything appear on the monitor?

With the new hard drive, how far did you get when installing Windows. Which version of Windows?

Also, was the drive clean when you installed or tried to install Windoze?? If you tried to install over an old install, it would have preserved the settings for the old mobo and that is likely to cause all sorts of problems....

the motherboard is an asus A7N8X and the processor is an xp 2800. The old hard drive is a 20 gig and the new one is a 40 gig. When booting the old one, I get the screen that says Windows did not start properly, then lets me choose between safe mode, normal mode, etc. I choose normal mode and a blue screen flashes for not even a second and then the whole boot process starts over. There is absolutely nothing on the new drive, but when attempting to use the windows xp cd, all it says is DISK BOOT FAILURE. INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. It recognizes all drives and even gets their master/slave setting right, but for some reason, still does not work.

To boot from the XP installation disk, you need to set Bios to boot from CD-Rom. If you are unsure how to do this get back to us.

I would install XP on the new drive. To do that you should jumper that drive as primary master. Boot the computer using the XP disk. XP will partition and format the new drive, then install Win XP on it.

I had tried that already, but I did it again to make sure... still no luck. I also tried plugging my old hard drive into my friends computer and setting it as master, and whaddya know... it worked. I've tried putting the hard drives in by themselves, everything. I've asked the highest level geeks I know, no one can figure anything out. I'm almost starting to get worried.

Is the BIOS detecting your drive(s)? ... correctly.. &
what is the booting order?
Are they set to auto detect - or manual?
Are you getting any start up beeps?
Can you boot to a floppy?

Am sure its nothin too serious:p

The bios is detecting the drives and detecting them correctly too. Originally it booted floppy first, then cd rom, then harddrive, but I changed it to boot cdrom first to see if that would do anything different... of course it didn't. I believe they are on auto detect. It beeps, it boots to floppy.

hmm what kind of RAM do you have? Did you buy it new with the mobo or did you use the old sticks from the other computer?
V

2 sticks of 256mb PC2700 333MHz DDR. Not sure what brand, Ginstar did not list the brand names. The memory test runs fine.

Here's what you have told us:

1) You have an old 20 GB hard drive with a previous installation of WinXP. This drive is detected by your computer but the computer will not boot to Windows. The HD works in anothr computer. Does it boot to Windows?

2) You have a new 40 GB hard drive that apparently is not partitioned or formatted. The drive is detected by bios but is unusable since it is not partitioned or formatted.

It is possible that a functional drive can be detected by bios but will not read - if you have a bad controller, if the drive is jumpered incorrectly, if the IDE cable is damaged, if data pins have been bent or broken.

Presuming that none of the above apply, if you try to boot to the old hard disk in the safe mode (press F8 repeatedly while booting) you should boot to Windows safe mode. This would allow you to remove the drivers that are causing crashes when you boot in Normal mode.

Or-

You could use the hard disk installation floppy that came with your new HD to boot and see if that detects your new drive. If that software detects the drive, then go ahead and partition and format it.

Whatever you do, try to work with only one hard drive in the machine at once so we are not confused by the results you report.

2 other things to look at:

1. Try different cable/cables. Make sure you are using an 80 wire cable.

2. Try using Cable Select on both drives. Try other combinations of jumper settings if that doesn't work.

Tried safe mode... it ran a list of all my startup files, but then started the boot process all over again... my new harddrive did not come with any sort of disk unfortunately. I checked my cables and tried using a few others... they are all 80 wire and none of them work. Put it on cable select to get the same results. *whimpers*

So if I understand correctly, even safe mode was unstable.. it rebooted?

Going to have to use a boot floppy i guess. Do you have a windows98 one kicking around? Try running fdisk, to view the HDD's & partitions. And then Scandisk, to check the partitions. You could try this with each hdd in turn. This will prove that the hdd's are working as well as the cables & the mobo.

Another thought.. Its a new mobo, has it ever worked for you? It may be faulty. Although I would be more inclined to check the memory & PSU before assuming its the mobo.

Heh nothins ever easy is it :(

Edit.. Just noticed the name of this thread 'Cannot run windows or boot disk, new mobo and hdd'..
So you cannot even use a boot disk? In which case it may be the mobo as you have been through the remedial checks to check everything is connected.

I do have an MS-DOS formatted floppy disk, and that is the only thing that works. I tried formatting the hard disks from this, but it could not find the drives. What can I type to see a list of every drive in the computer?

You might need a Startup disk to see all the drives including your Cd-rom.

1) Make a Startup disk (floppy) on any Windows computer by going to Control Panel,Add/Remove Programs, Startup disk. Windows 98 Startup disks work well.

2) Boot using the Start up disk.

3) Choose the option to boot with CD-Rom support.

4) After booting, you will be left with a 'A:\>' which is an A: prompt. Typing 'dir <enter>' will list the contents (directory) of A:.

5) Type 'C:' and you will be taken to C: drive. Type 'dir' and you will see the contents of C:

6) Type 'D:', 'E:','F:', etc. to find your other drives - HD and CD-Rom (make sure there is a CD in your CD-Rom drive otherwise it will say 'Drive not ready').

7) If your new HD is not partitioned and formatted it will not show up, but you should be able to see what is on your old drive, and find out if your Cd-rom is working.

8) Type 'A:' to return to the floppy drive.

9) Then type 'fdisk' to partition your drives. I would divide your new drive into two partitions 8 GB and 32 GB. When you have partitioned it, then you will need to format both partitions. If this is the only drive in your system, the two partitions will be called C: and D:.

10) Type 'format C:' to format the C: drive.

Please report back whether you are able to: See your HD's, and CD-Rom, and whether you are able to partition and format your drive.

Is your CMOS jumper set properly? Please don't be angry at that question. I've actually made that mistake before by leaving it disconected. That's the same as clearing CMOS once you power down for a wee bit. I blame it on me not wearing my glasses It seems odd that you set a boot sequence that isn't followed. Clear CMOS then set your sequence and since you've formatted (or at least kissed the data good bye)start from scratch.

P.S. I recently had a strange problem with a new MOBO not recognizin drives. A very new one in fact! It's an MSI875P NEO. I don't know if it was becaus one hard drive not reading it's jumpers right or BIOS requiring the biggest drive as master. Either way the only way I could get each drive to work was to put the "biggest" as master. Thing is they're both 40 gigs(39.00xG Vs 38,99XG), one ATA 100 and the other ATA133 though.
Which ones bigger and which 133 or 100? I dunno, it finally worked and I put the cover back one once both drives worked.

Please tell us what your solution is when you find it!
Thanks

Alright, I was able to find the cd drive, but it tells me that my old drive, the one that was partitioned and formatted and chock-full of data, is not partitioned or formatted. This does not make very much sense to me, since I recently stuck it in my friend's computer as a master drive and it worked just fine. A very odd case indeed. I decided that I will try formatting the new drive, taking them both to the computer that worked, transferring all of the data onto the new drive, and then formatting the old drive. I'll let you know how that turns out.

If you had the drive in another computer as Master, it probably has an Active partition. If it is now Slave and the other drive has an Active partition, this can cause all sorts of problems. I believe you can use fdisk to change the partition to inactive and you may want to try that...

It appears as though, for some reason or another, this motherboard does not like NTFS partitions. I fdisked my old drive, and it told me that it was not partitioned or formatted, but then when I selected the option to view partition settings, it told me that it had NTFS partitions. I partitioned and formatted the new drive (FAT32) and it now recognizes the drive is partitioned and formatted, but still the windows disk will not run. I'm going to try to solve one problem at a time, so does anyone know if there is any way to tell my motherboard to accept NTFS? I was informed that NTFS was better anyway, so I'm not quite sure why a brand new motherboard would not be so friendly towards it. Or maybe I'm a huge idiot. You tell me

Windows 98 won't recognize NTFS partitions. NTFS is short for New Technology File System, it is a better file system than FAT32 and its for NT/2000/XP. You can find all you want to know here. http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs.htm
If you were trying to see an NTFS formatted drive on a DOS boot disk that could be why your not seeing it ;p
Go here and make the NT boot disks if the computer won't boot from your windows 2000/xp cd. http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
Do this, make the windows 2000 or XP boot disks then boot the computer with them and install the OS.
Are you using a copy of a windows xp, not a liscensed version? If so it may not be bootable (i've seen this happen). The 2000/xp floppy disks will work though. Bet that will solve the problem.
Let us know though
Variable

So I made myself six cute little xp start up disks, deleted my FAT32 partition, and started the process. I made it all the way to disk six, past the EULA, right up to the part right before they ask for the cd insert, I got a nice little error telling me that "an error occured" and that I would have to restart the whole process. So I did. Four times. To no avail. I honestly thought I had it solved that time. This is beginning to get quite frustrating.

Disk6.. I think thats when its wanting to set up the HDD partitions. If it just isnt liking the HDD then you might want to create a nice simple FAT partition. Oh & Fdisk the MBR 1st .. can be a good idea if you are having probs getting XP to like the HDD.

Once the XP setup lets you into the disk / partition setup bit you can recreate the partitions as you like.

Sounds like a quirk I had a few months ago. Try kicking the PC too.. wont help it work but it will make u feel a whole lot better :p

You need to take out the two RAM dimms and try another brand. It could be that you have multiple problems, but I have seen the type of error your seeing loading windows before and it was my RAM butting heads with the mobo. It drove several of us nuts because the RAM worked in another test machine. Before you pull your hair out try another DIMM, they're cheap anyway. I've also seen this work on other help forums.
Variable

INKA we posted at the exact same time ;p
V

I had already gotten past the formatting. I was all the way to the part right before you insert the disk (I know because I accidentally did it with the xp sp1 floppies first, got all the way up there and when it told me to insert the disk, I realized I did the wrong one by mistake)

Ok... so XP has identified the Hard Disk.. partitioned it and all is well. But (theres always a but) it doesnt go for the CD? At least its probably not a hard drive problem then.

Scratching head now! try the memory as variable suggests.. I am kinda clutchin at straws now.. sorry :(

Hoping I get in b4 Variable this time :p

Say, since you are using an AMD processor, have you made sure what settings your memory is suppose to be set at? Check your mobo specs to make sure that it supports the type of memory you are using and also what it will allow you to clock the processor at. Just a thought.

Well, when checking the memory, it tells me that its all okay... it recognizes where the memory is and how much there is... the A7N8X is noted for having Dual Channel DDR and I have 2 sticks of pc2700 256DDR... meh, I don't know.