Kemik

I've had a PC since I was 9, I'm now 16 so I'm not lacking in knowledge on the software side of PCs.
However, I decided to build my own PC for the first time.

SO I've got all the parts, put them together using common sence and reading a laod of warnings. There's no loose wires and they all conenct tightly, where theres a numbe 1 port and a number 2 port I stuck the things into the one.
So I boot up my pc with my WIndows XP Home CD in the dvd drive.
It gives me a choice, F1 to run Bios, or F2 to use defaults. FOr now I used defaults and it went to black screen basically loading. It then basically says Restart pc or press any key to retry loading from the two set boot up devices.
The boot up devices are floopy (which I dont have caus i never use floppy discs) and another weird long number which I worked out to be my SATA 200 GB HDD.
So, as the basic idea of start pc, format hdd, install windows and party failed I looked at the bios.
It seems to see my Harddrive but theirs no mention of it being SATA, nor can I find any SATA Enable/disable keys on my bios settings.
I looked then at the boot-up drives to find no DVD Drives.

So basically my question is, how do I get my bios to detect my DVD-ROM and DVD-RW drives so I can stick the Windows disc in, format and away I go :P

Any questions will be answered :)

Thanks

elf

It won't show up as a dvd-rom. There should be an option to change the boot order...Just set the first boot device to cd-rom or atapi and it should work.

When the computer POSTs does it detect the drive?

Kemik

I have set thsi to first but I still get the same message. I've got it to detect the RW but not the ROM.
I don't have a floppy drive, do I need one to create a boot floppy to load MS-DOS before I can install Windows XP and format HDD?

Kemik

Update - I've moved my HDD over to the RAID SATA ports (I have SATA1, SATA2, RAID SATA 1 - 4) and the harddrive has diseapered in Bios but appeared in the RAID Control (f4).
Does anyone know of any guides to setting up Windows XP and formatting the harddrive via this method? Is this the best method?
I've seen this post:
BIOS not detecting SATA hard drives

Which is the best method or reformating, capatiability, etc RAID SATA or Normal SATA? Remember, I wish to create a Partition of around 20gb for Windows and extra documents and a Partition of the rest for storage. I would basically do all my stuff on C then virus scan transfer stuff I want to keep to D so I dont loose vitual stuff :)

Thanks

Kemik

BUMP

My boot order is
Sony DVD-RW
S405...... (SATA Harddrive)
Floppy (Even though I dont have a floppy drive)

On the start page of Bios
Master IDE Drive - Sony DVD-RW
Third Master IDE Drive - S405....... (SATA Harddrive)

I haven't "Jumpered" anything, just plugged the wires in. Basically its becuase I don't understand what it means or where/how I do it.
My motherboard came with the wide, thin black wires, each labelled for the different devices. E.g CD-ROM. The CD-ROM wrie comes with a T type end so I cannot connect two cd drives to the one motherboard but it only seems to detect the one CD Drive. I have pulled out one side of the T cable and it seems to make the mothergboard detect the other Drive.

elf

the jumper is circled. If you do not know how to set them between master and slave, just set them as CS (cable select). That way they the cable setup will determine whether they are primary or slave.

Can you boot to the cd-rw now? Try putting in the windows cd and see if it boots up.