Windows xp reboot loop (new build)

[baker641]

Ive been having alot of trouble these past few hours installing xp on a newly built comp. (This is my first build)
Ive succesfully gotten the bios post up screen to come up and it recognizes my hard drive, cd drive.

When I go to install xp i do a full reformat of my blank hard drive and it then proceeds to copy the files onto the hard drive. Finally it goes "rebooting in 15 seconds". When it reboots it brings me back to the orginal menu. It says that I have to reformat because there is either no partition, damged partition, or damaged harddrive.

I go to format and copy the files again and it loops me after rebooting time and time again..

I have a Western Digital Caviar Blue 320 gb 7200 rpm. I just got it (blank), it came oem without cd or cabes.
Could this be because I didnt load the drivers in using f6 in the beginning or is it a bad hard drive? Thx.

 

[aford10]

Using f6 to load drivers at the beginning of the install process is for 3rd party and RAID drivers. You shouldn't need to load any drivers for your WD drive.

If you created your partition and went through the format process and it's not taking the install, it's probably a bad drive. OEM drives are usually only covered by the manufacturers warranty, so you may want to check into that.

 

[btk1w1]

Does your XP install disk have any service packs? i.e. XP SP3?

Is the drive you are attempting to install XP on a SATA drive?

I wouldn't have thought that the install would copy the files to the HDD without SATA support if it a SATA drive, unless they were just being copied to RAM.

Either way XP SP1 came with no SATA support (I believe SP2 & 3 do though), if this is the case you may need to install the SATA drivers from your motherboards manufacturers website.

 

[baker641]

i have windows sp2 and so far ive tried full reformat and quick reformat..and repair. I was supposed to have this thing blank but it only has 308 gigs before reformat (even the first time i tried it). Is this normal..?

 

[btk1w1]

Yes it is normal to show less capacity after a format.

This is due to decimal vs binary.

1GB decimal = 1,000MB
1GB binary = 1.024MB

The HDD manufacturer will give you the capacity in decimal format, and the PC will display it in binary format.

I've done a bit of reading and from what I can tell SATA support isn't included with XP SP2.

You may need to create a custom install disk with SATA drivers included.

The program you will need to do this is nLite.

There are plenty of tutorials online to do this. I have provided a google search link:

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=slipstream+sata+drivers+nlite&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=3&oq=slipstream+SA

 

[btk1w1]

Sorry I just read 308GB before format. If you were viewing the capacity in the BIOS, you will have seen the binary capacity.