Boots to black screen with blinking cursor (new hard drive, Windows 8)

[rosepage]

Hello,

I purchased a new, larger hard drive for my computer as well as Windows 8 to put on it. When I first put the hard drive in my computer and set the boot priority to CD and put the Windows 8 CD in the drive the screen would only show "insert boot media or select boot device and press a key." After some research I decided to use GParted Live to partition my new hard drive. GParted live showed me that indeed my new hard drive was unallocated so I had to create a partition table and then a partition. After doing so, on boot up my computer now shows a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top left. I figure this response is better than before because at least it means it is recognizing my Windows 8 cd now, but obviously something is still wrong. Any advice?

BTW my system info is:

MSI 990xa-gd55 mobo
AMD FX eight-core processor
EVGA GTX 650 video card
2 4Gb sticks of Kingston RAM
850W PSU

 

[COLGeek]

This means that there is no bootable image on the HDD. Is this HDD the only one in the system?

 

[rosepage]

Yes. Brand new WD 1TB hard drive.

 

[COLGeek]

Do you have Windows 8 on DVD or USB? Just boot to that device and install to the HDD. You may have to manually force the system to select your boot device (pressing F8 during the BIOS splash screen) works with many motherboards.

 

[rosepage]

Windows 8 is on a DVD that I burned from a digital download. I know it works because I have inserted it into my laptop to make sure. I have tried pressing F8 repeatedly while the computer boots but it doesn't do anything. It used to bring up a boot device menu before I partitioned the hard drive and got the black blinking cursor screen, but not anymore.

 

[COLGeek]

Verify that your boot order is set to the optical drive first.

 

[rosepage]

Yep! It is set to optical drive and then hard drive.

 

[COLGeek]

So when you checked it on your laptop, you booted to the DVD or did you just look at the files?

 

[rosepage]

I guess I just looked at the files. I will try booting to the CD now though. However, in my unworking desktop I did try booting to a Windows 7 CD that I know works to boot from because I have used it to boot and install an OS about six months ago and when I insert that CD and try to boot I still get the black screen and blinking cursor.

 

[COLGeek]

Make sure your data and power connections are firmly attached on the DVD drive, connectors can come loose while you are working on the innards of systems.

 

[iAmNotJosh]

Im having the same problem. Everything on my mobo is detected and power connectors are firmly in place. I just finished building my computer and the bloody OS wont install, i get this darn black screen with just the mouse.
MY specs are i7 2700k, asus 660 ti, Asrock z77 extreme 4, corsair gs800w, seagate barracuda 1tb, nzxt phantom full tower, and windows 8 pro disk. Im using a usb dvd drive for the disk read.

 

[rosepage]

Well my problem was with the operating disks. We put the OS on a jump drive and booted from of and of worked. Thanks for the help guys!!

 

[COLGeek]

Glad you sorted out the problem. Good job!