Want Boot up

[usmc42000]

my power supply went bad so i bought a new one installed found out that it does not see my hard drive, bought a new hard drive and installed, set bios to boot from cd put in xp cd, installs drivers starts loading windows sets their about 7 hours before it wants to format hard drive. then windows start up and freezes their any solutions thanks

[luck of the irish]

you could have breaking your motherboard when your PSU went.

[hot dog]

bought a new hard drive and installed,

Could you post the make and model of the computer, please...
How old is the computer?



What kind of HDD is it?   SATA or PATA (IDE)

Did you try pulling off the cables and connecting them again, inside?

[usmc42000]

the hard drive is a western digital eide 160 gb, the computer is about 5 years old.
no brand name i built it.

[patio]

DLoad and run the Western Gigital Data lifeguard Free utilites to see if that drive can be trusted with valuable data...
Run the long Test.

[Quantos]

What kind of HDD is it?   SATA or PATA (IDE)

Did you try pulling off the cables and connecting them again, inside?

Did you try what blockHEAD suggested?  Double check to make sure that you have the ribbon connected properly if it is an EIDE drive.  Pin 1 goes closest to the Molex(power) connector.

[hot dog]

the computer is about 5 years old.

Have you ever blown it out with compressed air?  If not, it's probably time to give it a shot..
Make sure there is no dust built up in the heatsink of the processor, especially. 

Some bios come with anti-virus and that could cause it to freeze when trying to install..... Just look around in CMOS and set it to "disable", if it exists..

Also, pull the jumper pin off the back of the EIDE drive and set it to Cable Select... On some installations it's recommended to use the Cable Select setting, if it is the only HDD on the system.. 

You might want to inspect the motherboard for bulging capacitors as well.  Look at the tops of all the capacitors on the motherboard...They should all be relatively flat.......and make sure there is nothing leaking out of the tops of them, either