Computer problem

[Mousehouse]

I helped a friend built a computer last weekend. He wanted to use a maxtor 300gb sata hard drive. He is wanting to use windows xp as the OS. All of the parts are new.

The problem he is having is when he tries to load the OS it hangs and has an error message before windows starts to load (after loading all of the drivers).

When are you suppose to be able to partition the drive? Before the OS is loaded, during setup or after windows is done?

I haven't messed with new computers in years so I thought I would start here first.

If you need more information let me know.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Aceshigh]

If you need more information let me know.

......yeah, that would help.
You can partition a drive DURING the Windows OS install if it's XP.
PRE XP/2000 you could do it via Fdisk. (don't worry, doesn't apply here)

Specifically WHERE does it hang....you said after the drivers....that doesn't tell me enough.
Is it a blue screen still where it hangs ?? Or is it a regular colored screen ....give me more info.

I'm outta here for the night but I'm sure someone else might be willin to help. Good luck.

 

[Mousehouse]

P4 3.2 dual core processor, 1gb memory, asus mother board, two dvd drives, maxtor 300 gb sata hard drive. What other info do you need?

 

[Aceshigh]

Do you have the correct RAM speeds for your mother board ??

 

[Mousehouse]

Yes

 

[bmxmann]

you are booting from the cd-rom drive with XP in it right? do that and just run through the setup and you will format it in there, I assume its not formatted since you said its new.

 

[BTTB71SS]

What type of sata drive Sata1 or Sata2?

Also what type of SATA controllers are on your board?

Based on the type of controller SATA1 or SATA2 you would need to jumper your hard drive accordingly.

Make sure you have the drivers available when installing XP, you need to press F6 at the beginning

 

[zzzzz28]

you need to load the drivers that came with the motherboard, otherwise the pc doesn't "know" what all the pieces are. A cd usually comes with the system board and is bootable.

 

[Aceshigh]

Ah there ya go.

I haven't messed with anything SATA yet. I'm still on good ol IDE drives

 

[bmxmann]

IDE is the Shiznit!