Few problems on new PC, Help!

[asura000]

Hey there,

Have a few questions regarding my new pc i just built.

First off the specs:

Intel Q9450
Asus P5Q P45 Intel
4gig OCZ Ram DDR2
700watt PSU
X850xt ATI (upgrading as soon as the new graphics come out)

Right I have 2 problems:

1. So i got my pc set up and running, however when I switch it on, it loads up the initial screens for the bios information etc. But then after those screens when its ***meant to*** load the XP screen, instead it has a "_" (underscore) on the top left of the screen which flashes and just stays there. I have 2 hard drives i have conntected using the 18pin cable to the motherboard. This was from my previous pc which unfortunatly stopped working. I have also a new 500gb harddrive i connected through Sata connectors.

So i messed about with the bios and set both my drives in turns to load first on boot up. However im pretty sure my hard drive 1 is the one that has my previous XP installation on it. when i load the other one it says "No installation found". my third harddrive (SATA one) isnt even recognised yet on the bios. But im just focused on getting my new system to load my xp from my old hard drive. It worked fine on my previous pc.

2. Conneciton to the CD drives. On my previous motherboard which was a DDR1 board running a AMD 3200, it had TWO 18 pin cable sockets. So before i could connect my hard drives to one 18 pin socket on the motherboard, and my disk drives on the second 18pin socket. However the new P45 Asus board seems to only have 1x 18pin sockets which is intended for the hard drives. So i'm completely stumped on what wires and what connectors to use and where in the motherboard I should connect, as im completely stumped.

So please if anyone can offer any advice or help it is most appreciated as it is quite urgent.

Many Thanks.

 

[apence]

You could try to set the drive #1 (with windows) to master with the jumper pins, then plug it into the last plug on the ide cable. Then, do not plug in the second drive (without windows). Windows may boot up. You could try to do a repair on windows using the original disk, which may let it work with the new motherboard.

What you SHOULD do is reinstall Windows. You could do it on the other drive (set as master and on the end of the ide cable), then connect an optical drive as a Slave (on the middle plug, jumpers set to slave) so that you can install windows on the drive. Or you could do it on the SATA drive if you can get it detected. I would think that it would detect the drive, but maybe you have to enable something in the bios. I had to enable SATA Raid in my bios to detect my SATA DVD drive (AMD 690 system). IF you get the SATA drive going then you could make the optical drive a master on the IDE cable. When windows and drivers are installed, disconnect the optical drive and connect the old windows drive as a slave (make sure to set the jumpers correctly). Transfer your important files from the old windows disk to the new one.

To get all of your drives working you have several options. You can buy an adapter that plugs into the back of the ide drive. The adapter is a SATA/IDE adapter. Then you can plug the IDE drive into the SATA ports on the motherboard. OR you can buy a new SATA optical drive. This would probably be better in the long run.

ALL of the new motherboard chipsets only support one IDE port (the 18 pin cable sockets). The manufacturers are doing away with IDE.