Just finished assembling the new computer. Powered it on and everthing seems to have worked...POST screen comes up and then frinal message OS failure no OS....insert OS and press enter.

Get 1st screen -Setup is inspecting your hardware configuration.
Get 2nd screen- Windows setup (blue screen)
To set up Windows XP now press Enter
To repair press R
To quit press F3

I press enter

Get screen 3- License agreement Press F8 to accept

I Press F8

Get Screen 4 The following list shows existing partitions and unpartitioned space on your
computer
Use up and down arrow keys to select and item on the list

to set up windows xp on the selected item press enter

to create a partition in the unpartitioned space press C

to delete the selected partition press D

I want to install windows XP on the first HD.....so I press enter.

Get screen 4 To install windows XP on the partition you selected windows must write some startup files to the following disk

476938 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (MBR)

However this disk does not contain a windows XP compatible partition.

to continue installing windows XP, return to the partition selection screen and create a windows XP compatible partition on the disk above. If there is no free space on the disk, dekete an existing partition, and create a new one.

Press enter to return to partition selection screen.

I go back to the partition selection screen and I see the first drive is labeled

C: Partition1 (New RAW) 476930MB (476929 MB Free)
Unpartitioned spaces (8 MB)

At this point I'm in a loop..if I delete the partiton and try it again...same result. If I delete the partition and select create a partition and select the maximum amount of disk space, I get the same result. I'm in a loop.

What am I doing wrong?

I have two identical seagate 500 GB hard drives installed. On the partition selection page it lists both of them...I notice that both are shown as Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (MBR). shouldn't they be different?

....something doesn`t sound right here. Please post some details regarding the hardware configuration. One way of solving the problem is to test 1 hard-drive at a time and add the next one afterwards. By any chance did you establish any RAID policies (RAID 0, 1, etc.) in BIOS?
Another idea would be that the unlucky hard-drive was used on a Linux machine and you need to delete all the Unix based partitions.
Try the "one hard-drive at any given time" policy and add the 2nd one after you install the operating system. Cheers

Here's particulars. Gigabyte MB EP35-DS3L (not a raid MB), 2 GB RAM two Seagate Barracuda 500BG SATA OEM HD's.

Had the two SATA HD's plugged into the SATA 0 and 1 on the MB, SATA DVD is on the SATA 4. When the OS Install first came up it showed both drives listed identically. I selected the first drive assuming it was in the SATA 0 plug on the MB. That's when I got into the loop as explained earlier.

After posting that message I went back to the computer and tried the same steps as stated earlier (first clue to insanity is trying the same action numerous times and expecting a different outcome). Anyway, I figured I'd try selecting the second drive listed. To my surprise the OS allowed me to partition and format and install. After loading MB and Video drivers...I went looking for the second drive.

Window hardware manager had it listed...but windows explorer did not. I just wanted to format the drive and use it for storage. So, I thought maybe I had a dead SATA port on my MB....I shut down and tried different SATA cables and different SATA ports on the MB...Explorer will not recognize the second drive but hardware manager does show it. When I click on each drive when in hardware manager, One drive gives me tow options to disable and uninstall....the other only gives me one option...."uninstall"

BOIS shows both drives. I thinking the drive is bad.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

missing the format step the disk has to be formatted so it can write data on it. Creating a partition and formatting is two seperate things.

Okay, I plead stupid on this one...now that my computer is running and I want to add my second HD to it. I assume I plug the SATA drive in using a SATA cable into the SATA 1 plug in my MB..and attach a power cord to the drive.

Now I turn the computer on, and the BIOS detects the new drive and so does Windows Hardware manager.

How do I format the drive.

I'm used to running Win2K Pro...so XP is a bit different for me. I never was able to find a place in Windows that showed the drive and gives me the option to format it.

Sorry about this.....but I've been looking at this for hours today....and I'm stumped.

Go to "Computer Management/Disk Management" and partition the disk (just one big partition if that's what you want). Make sure you work on the correct disk! Then you'll be able to format it.

my computer, highlight the drive, go up to tool bar, file, format. however it should not show in if the drive has not been partitioned. Second windows can only see 130gigs 48 bit addressing neeeds to be enabled to read all of the disk. In the future get UBCD and it has options to setup harddrives, best bootup diag disk you can get.

Okay, that's how it is in Windows 2K, my old computer is running W2K and has two drives and thats where they show up,

Problem is with the new build, under My Computer, it only shows one single HD and my DVD drive. The second drive is not there.

The dive shows under the BIOS and in Hardware manager....but is not under My computer.

I'm guessing the drive is DOA. Had an old drive fail on another system...it showed in the system BIOS and hardware manager...but I could not access the thing through windows...did not appear in explorer or My computer.

I thought I was missing something here. The tip off something was wrong was when during the install of the XP OS...the install screen showed the HD as being there (both of them)...but would not format the drive......kept getting the message:

"To install windows XP on the partition you selected windows must write some startup files to the following disk"

476938 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi (MBR)

"However this disk does not contain a windows XP compatible partition."

"to continue installing windows XP, return to the partition selection screen and create a windows XP compatible partition on the disk above. If there is no free space on the disk, dekete an existing partition, and create a new one. "

That was the loop I was in during the install with this drive. I would fo back to the screen to set the disk up and it would keep giving me the same message on the next screen. As soon as I selected the other drive...it began to format and write files to it.

Heading back to CompUSA with HD and receipt in hand. I'll have their tech guys test the disk.....betting it's bad.

Does the drive show in Disk Management?

The drive will NOT show up in My Computer unless it has been partitioned and formatted with disk management first. Right-click on My Computer and select "Manage". Go down to disk management. The drive should be listed there and it should allow you to create partitions on it, then format them. If this is not the case, then chances are the hard drive is bad.