Windows XP Won't boot up after fresh install. Please help.

[William56]

I have an older PC. I recently purchased a brand new Western Digital 120 GB hard drive for my computer. Western Digital has a CD called Data Life Guard tools. Basically these tools allows me to format this 120 GB HD easily and quickly. I used this Data Life Guard tools and formatted the new 120 GB HD. No problems. I then Installed XP on this same HD. Again no problems. All the installations went with out any problems. Now I have a brand new HD installed and Windows XP is freshly installed as well. I go to boot up this newly built configuration and insted of getting to the desk top I get the following error. " Reboot and select proper Boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press any key". I do not know what happened. I tried swapping out the IDE cable, but no change. This 120 GB drive is jumper-ed to master. Can any one tell me what is wrong? What did I miss. Please assist. Thanks in advance.

[Geek-9pm]

I would say you have to try again.
May I suggest you try a smaller partition size. Make two partition of 60GB each.
Also, allow XP to format the partition.

[Allan]

Feel free to ignore the above post - partition size is irrelevant.

Are you saying that you did get into Windows initially but now you cannot?

[jmetz1]

I'm not 100% sure, but I believe that you either have to have the new disk in the old boot slot or you have to tell the O/S that this new disk is the new boot disk.  If you have done that, then I'll shut up and sit back down.

[Geek-9pm]

Are you saying that you did get into Windows initially but now you cannot?

Really? You have no clue.
Ignore Allan, do it again with a smaller partition.
Use XP to set the size and format the drive.

[Allan]

Really? You have no clue.
Ignore Allan, do it again with a smaller partition.
Use XP to set the size and format the drive.

Document your suggestion. Since when can't XP use a 120Gb partition, regardless of how it was created?

William56 - until we see some documentation to the contrary, don't worry about the size of the partition.

[Geek-9pm]

Document your suggestion. Since when can't XP use a 120Gb partition, regardless of how it was created?

Don't read into what I said. I did not say XP can not use a 120 GB. The user has a problem. I told him how to isolate the problem. Try again with smaller partition made by XP is among the the first in a series of tests to identify the problem.

Information need here is:
Was the thing working OK before the install? Which OS?
Did the BIOS recognize the HDD?
Why didn he use the WD tools?
Which version of XP? Retail? OEM?
Has the CD-ROM been tested?
How much memory?

There is a reason to believe that a try again with small XP created partition works. It is not really an XP issue.

[Allan]

Okay, you need to stop now. The size of the partition has nothing to do with anything.

[Geek-9pm]

Okay, you need to stop now. The size of the partition has nothing to do with anything.

You still don't understand.
It is not the partition size per se.
He needs to format in in XP with a smaller partition size.
That is not just partition size, it is a process.
When XP formats a drive with a smaller partition size  there are at least three things that are different. So we eleminate three posibilites at once.

[William56]

Thanks for all the replies. I have tried to reformat the hard drive using Windows and not the Data Life Guard Tools. I also broke the partition two. For this I used disk management tools to format the second partition. As before everyting seemed to go just fine until I rebooted. And then I got the message I have already mentioned. I have never had this problem before. So, I rebooted just for fun. The reboot actually got me into Windows XP just fine. No, I haven't changed one thing. I have no idea why its doing this. I would much rather just go directly into windows like normal people. I am open to any suggestions. Thank so far.

[Geek-9pm]

There was a reason for asking you to try again.
The problem seems to be the hard drive.
What is the model # of the drive?
Orr the combination of old computer, new hard drive.

Did you buy this drive new? If so, see if you can send it back.
Once in awhile new drives come from the factory and they are not reliable. The drive will work for a few hours and them fail. Format it again and it does the same thing. It happens. Not often. But it does. (The manufacturers know full well what this is.)

[EDIT. There is another possibility.]

BTW, Be careful about buying 'new' hard drive n eBay. Except from reputable vendor. (Some  bad guys resell drives that are returned for rework.)

Please respond if you are sure the problem is not the hard drive. I would like to know more about this. How old is the motherboard? Model?

[William56]

Thanks Geek-9pm. This is a Westen Digital Hard drive 1200BB. The funny thing is that once I control alt delete the operating system comes up fine [windows xp]. Unfortunately I did buy this HD off of Ebay. The seller I believe was a power seller. Could this problem be in my MBR or some other place? Once I Crtl Alt Del everything seems to be working as it should. Do I need to do a repair on something? I hate to beat a dead horse. I can't afford another computer right now. Any other suggestions.

[BC_Programmer]

When XP formats a drive with a smaller partition size  there are at least three things that are different.

Partition size has nothing to do with this problem. There is nothing "different" that could possibly cause this problem when a 60GB partition is used rather then a 120GB partition. Allan asked you to document your blabberings. You didn't, you just continued to go into a irrelevant tangent that the "process" is different,Which you made up on the spot. The only even remotely feasible problem related to your jibber-jabber would be the fact that XP RTM cannot support drives larger then 137GB, but this drive doesn't exceed this size and therefore that limitation is nonexistent, additionally it's rather unlikely that they are using the RTM release of XP anyway.

The user has a problem. I told him how to isolate the problem. Try again with smaller partition made by XP is among the the first in a series of tests to identify the problem.

err... no it isn't. That doesn't even make sense. It doesn't isolate the problem, it just wastes their time. It's akin to somebody having a problem with their mouse movements being jerky and you saying that they should check wether the swap mouse buttons option is enabled, to isolate the problem.

Once I Crtl Alt Del everything seems to be working as it should.

What if you wait a few moments and simply press a key (rather then Control Alt Delete)? Does it start booting then?

[William56]

BC-Programer. Yes once I press CRTL ALT DEL the PC boots right  into Windows xp. I just ran a checkdisk for fun using windows OEM CD. It said that "Checkdisk found I have some errors on the volume. So I started to run a FIXMBR just to see things. It said: This computer appears to have a non standard or invalid master boot record. I am not sure what all this means. Open to suggestions.

[Computer_Commando]

Some of those used drives are Dell or HP takeouts or old stock.  They may still contain the hidden non-DOS partition at the front of the disk which the BIOS uses to access the Utilities.  Windows would be unable to find the boot.ini file in the 1st partition.  Why it's not an issue with a soft-boot is unclear to me.

"...Recent Dell computers come with a hidden Dell Utility partition at the front of the disk. By pressing the right keys while the computer is starting up, the bios startup procedure will pause and display a boot menu from which the user can choose to boot this utility partition instead of the normal Windows partition..."
 
What is the make & model of your computer.
OR If it's a Dell, the BIOS may be looking for something that's not there, instead of something that is there.