"drive not ready - system halted" on intel 850 board

[neelchauhan]

  I wanted to start Windows XP Professional on one of my PC's and it got me a error:
Drive not ready - system halted
My specs are:
Intel Pentium 4 1.3GHz
Intel d850GB
512MB RDRAM (4*128MB)
30GB IDE hard drive (Western Digital)
Goldstar CD-ROM drive
I have no controller card.

HOW DO I FIX IT?

[Karnac]

Has your drive been making any strange noises lately? ........ Try replacing the IDE cable.......

[patio]

Also was this HDD swapped out of another machine ? ?

More info.

[neelchauhan]

I replaced the IDE cables and it still gave the error. I swapped the drives from another machine.

[patio]

Was there an OS installed on it ? ?
If so there is your reason....
Windows can't simply be swapped from one PC to another and be expected to boot properly....
It's looking for the old hardware.