lifeonmars

hi. I was hoping someone here would know what this could be. I formated a hard drive ( working well) and tried to set up xp. It will get to the point where it says it needs to restart and then continue the installation. What happens is it restarts, and instead of continuing the installation, it tries to install again. Then you go to install it thinking that maybe this is the rest of what's involved, but then it says that it is not safe to install two operating systems on the same hard drive, meaning that the o.s. is at least installed to some extent, but I can't get it to go to the next step. I have no clue as to what it could be doing. Anyone have this problem/know what to do?

Thanks.

manic

When it goes to reboot, take the cd out of the tray before hand.
Then it will reboot and continue, then prompt you to place cd back
in tray. Kind of a pain, but there it is.

lifeonmars

Tried taking the to cd out before it reboots and putting it back, but it just uses it as a boot device. It says it is looking for boot record from scsi then the dvd and floppy drives. It doesn't do anything until the cd-rom of windows, and then all it starts to do is re-install windows. Does this happen
to other people?

lifeonmars

Hi. I have been having trouple installing windows. I thought that I had attached ide cable to the hard drive, but then a message said ATAPI not compatable. Could I have fried the drive from using an atapi instead of an ide cable? this is the problem I've been having:

http://www.techsupportforum.com/micr...ng-itself.html

I thought that it was software related, but now it could be hardware. Any ideas?

lifeonmars

Wait, atapi is just another name IDE isn't it? I wanted to see if my ide cable was dead, so I swapped the cable I used for the cd-rom and used that. Why would it say "Atapi not compatable" if it is the same type of cable?

linderman

yes atapi is another name for IDE and so is ATA

I would try another cable hard drives use a 80wire data cable and cd rom drive use a 40 wire

the computer should be able to see and use the hard drive with the cd-rom cable though, just not as fast with reads and writes

the first place to check is in the bios, if the bios doesnt see the drive and report the model number correctly then you cant take step 2

check your bios; you should see the drive in the boot order but dont change your settings

manic

Why did you format the machine? Was the machine up and running
prior to this, any new hardware?

Tumbleweed36

HI,

I have a few short questions:

What brand name is this hard drive?

How do you have the jumpers set?

What IDE slot are you trying to set it up on?

Where on the ribbon cable are you putting it?

One other thing, just tell us what your IDE drive setup is....like, what drives are on which cable (list all drives on IDE #1 and IDE #2) and where located...that should help a bunch. Also be sure you follow linderman's advice and use an 80 connector cable for hard drives.

Done_Fishin

I would suggest that he is probably trying to install to a SATA disk without loading the drivers at F6 in the install.
the drivers will either be on the CD that came with the motherboard or he'll have to source them from the motherboard manuafacturers site.
Another alternative is that he acquires the SP2 network distribution update and streamline his Original CD with SP2, this has the drivers updated and works without additional driver disks.