I'm trying to install xp on another computer so i can use it for work related stuff.Won't be going on line with it.
Here is whats happening.

New clean hard drive, insert disk, it reads it and starts the XP INSTALL.
Does the first part of the install...REBOOTS.
This is where you don't hit any key to boot from cd rom.
Why does it want to start the install process all over again?????

I even change the boot order. No change

Thanks again, John

i have found sometimes i have to take the cd out when tis rebooting then put it back in i dont know why

I tryred that. Even cleaned the cd. If i don't get it back in in time it says NO OPERATING SYSTEM FOUND ON C:
What else can cause this???? Help meeeeeee.

John

do you hvae the jumpers on the hard drive set right? they can be set for master slave and cable seclet.i normall set mine for cable and the main hd plug into the plug at the end of the cable. is it pluged into the right port on the morther board there is an ide port for cd roms and hard drives easy to get missed up.

Thanks Truckdude,
I did check the jumper settings. I had it set to master.
and the cable was never touched from before the attempt to install XP PRO.
I had this happen before,but it just installed and finished. I had another drive ( smaller) and tryed that and it finished. Now i have XP on it. But I still would like to find out why it happens, incase someone else has that problem.

So any takers???

Thanks everyone, John

ok, wait - so you got it to install when the drive jumper was set to master? What was it set to before? Can you give any more details on what make/model of computer it is? How many other drives were inside the computer? You have two IDE ports on a computer - this means two possible data cables, four possible drives. How many cables and drives did you have, which chain were they on, which ones were masters and which were slaves OR which were cable select?

Oh - if you're still having problems installing, let me know. I'm a little confused based on your last post if you're still having problms

Hi Shifty,
Sorry for the confushion.
The drives that i tryed to install on were all set to master.
Each one would never finish. They would install the files but would not go into the next part. Thats the installing the files and setup.
The drives were only 10 and 20 gigs in size. I found a drive that was only 2.5 gigs and thats the one that finished.
The computer is and old HP laying around. It has 192 meg of ram. and is a 764 mhz. I know i should have more ram but that is the best that i had laying around.

Again sorry, need more info please let me know.

John

Sounds a little strange to me, never seen anything like that. If Windows doesn't write a boot sector to the drive and complete the boot.ini, it won't boot to the hard drive and complete the install. You got me there. Normally, if you have the installer write the files to the drive, then it reboots and tries to run the installer again, it will detect the previous install attempt and ask if you want to resume that one.

In this case, I always have a copy of Norton Ghost handy in my house. I would just take the other larger drive and just freakin' mirror the small drive to the large drive and boot from it.

for clarity - i mean, install Windows to the small drive, then pop in the large drive, use Ghost to write the contents of the small drive to the large one, then remove the small drive and install the large one as your boot drive.

Thanks Shifty,
I'll keep your information on hand for the next time this happens.
Like i said i have it on a small drive for now. I don;t plan on puting alot on it.
Mostly office work DOC, eXCEL, Word. I'll try the same thing at another time.

Again Thanks all who responded to my question.

John

Just had that happen to a customer's computer this weekend. Replaced the hard drive as you stated with one of our test hard drives and it worked no problem. Planned on ghosting the smaller drive to his larger one, but this is not the fist time his hard drive "looses" files and can not boot up anymore. We recommended he just get a new drive.

Thanks Ric83,
That what i was thinking. The drives I was trying to use were ones that came out of spare computers. Maybe they were bad drives. Like i said i got it to load
on a smaller drive ( 2.5 gig ).The others were 10 and 20's gigs. This is going to be use for my home office anyway.

Thanks Again, John