I messed up on installing my new hard drive, please help!

Reboot the machine.

I've tried, it doesn't help, it keeps going straight to a black screen with the cursor like it's waiting for something. This is a brand new hard drive and I'm wondering if I messed something up because I didn't see what it was doing? LOL, I'm sure that sounds silly but I only have enough knowledge to know how to replace the hard drive and that I needed to put the windows xp install disc in =(

Reboot and go into BIOS or pick boot device screen and pick boot from cd. If you don't know what key to press try the delete key, f12 f10 esacpe. One of them should bring up some options.

Make sure you have boot from cd drive as 1st option. Well at least higher on the list then the hdd.

You mean you need to install windows xp onto the drive right? Not just put the xp disk into the machine. For that all you would to do is plug in the power cable for the optical drive and press the open button while the machine is power up.

Yes that's correct I need to install it onto the drive. It's the first step i was taking after plugging it in. if the jumper wasn't in the right place my computer wouldn't be acknowledging the new hard drive right?

I've been in f2 and f12, f2 (set up) it shows my new hard drive and it's size. f12 is a boot menu saying things like: normal then it has IDE drive, disc and cd rom. I assumed that was the place you were talking about since i can only get anything to come up on f2 and f12 and nothing is happening but I will try again with your response up on my other computer.

I thought also I should mention the reason I am trying to replace the hard drive in this other computer is my friend bought a brand new computer and shipped me the old one, it's a Dell Dimension 8250. It was working fine when she sent it to me but once I received it and hooked it up I got the blue screen with an unmountable_boot_volume and was told it was the hard drive.

The old hard drive is a WD Caviar 120 GB and the new one that is supposedly compatable is a WD Caviar Blue 160 GB they both are 7200 RPM. The old one on the back side say it's an enhanced IDE but the new one says it's an EIDE.

Anyway, I will try what you said again and will post what happened or didn't happen, LOL!

Thank you so much for trying to help me!!!

OK, I tried the above. If I press f2 I get the set up screen which again it is acknowledging that hard drive 0 is auto and 160 GB so I'm hoping that means I have the jumper in the correct spot and that this is a compatable hard drive. When I press f12 it is a boot menu and I choose the number that says cd drive type thing and enter it says it failed and to press f1 to retry or f2 for set up. Could there be something else wrong? I have checked all the cables or connections inside to make sure nothing is loose. I have put in the Data Lifeguard Tools disc and the Windows Operating System XP Home Edition install disc that came with the computer originally and nothing is happening. I continue to get a black screen with a white cursor.

I'd love to say: "hey, I'll just take this to a computer repair place and have them take care of it." But I can't afford that =(

I am very much a newbie when it comes to anything internal on the computer and would really appreciate any ideas or help.

I got it to work =)

I made sure again that it was set to boot from cd and what I had to do was open and close the cd drive and press f1 to retry 4 times until it finally started from it.

So it appears everything is good!