HDD Problem?

[paul_vo]

Hello,

I don't know if this is the right place for my problem but before I state my problem here are my specs:

PSU - ANTEC Perf 350W
MOBO - ECS 915P-A (1.2)
CPU - Intel Pentium 4 HT 630 3.0 GHz
VID - ATI Radeon 8500 64MB 4xAGP
RAM - 512MB DDR333 RAM
HDD - WD 60GB IDE (non-SATA)

My problem is that once it loads past the AMIBIOS, it doesn't load the OS. It stays black for a second and then restarts. I've checked the IDE cables, jumpers, connections, power cable, everything looks good. The RAM, HDD, VID, PSU worked fine for my old setup. This board supports all my old stuff which is the reason I bought it. I'm stumped, could the IDE Controller be bad? Could it be that my HDD has my old hardware saved on it and its conflicting with the new mobo? Could it be that since I'm using the HDD and CD-ROM on the same IDE cable its conflicting? Please shed some light, thanks.

-edit- I've tried using the XP cd and setting the CD-ROM to boot first, but its not loading the CD so I can try a reformat. It just says "Reboot and Select proper Boot device or Insert Boot Media in selected Boot device and press a key"

- I also tried booting in Safe mode in all 3 options and it just restarts after I select it.

[paul_vo]

Also, my mobo has 4 SATA ports and only 1 IDE slot. It says in the manual that it is recommended to use SATA for HDD and IDE for CD/DVD-ROM. Does this mean that I can't use IDE for HDD? Do I have to buy a SATA HDD in order for things to work smoothly?

[dan19_my]

hello paul
did you try to change your first booting device to boot from cd first?

[Paul Komski]

Once you can boot to the CD a Repair Installation should avoid having to do a complete reinstallation. http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

You say you have set to boot to the CD first so did you save the changes in the BIOS before exiting. If the boot priority still shows CDROM first then are you possibly missing a message to press a key during startup to initiate the boot from the CD.

Have you tried another boot CD to test whether it is possibly just a bad WinXP CD medium.

[Cavalier90]

What does your BIOS indicate as being attached? Check for IDE and SATA devices being found. If none are found this explains why it will not boot. I got the same error message last night and no IDE devices were found in BIOS. I fixed it by removing the battery from the MOBO and letting the BIOS reset itself.

[paul_vo]

I got it fixed. Something was wrong with one of the files I guess, so I reinstalled XP. Everything is working smooth now.

thanks for the help guys!