I did it, now what?

[Phillip]

Here's the deal.  My nephew asked me to put together his new computer. Nothing fancy, 1.6ghz duron, 128mb of memory a 40 gig hd and a 52x cdrom.  I put everything together and and it seems to be slow to boot.  First it checks for the IDE dirves which takes about 2 minutes, then it checks dmi verify data......
Then it says: boot from cd:
Ive check the bios and the settings are good.  Ive checked the cables and every thing is good.  I placed the xp pro disk in the cdrom and windows started up and loaded, but after the computer reboots.  I get the same boot from cd: message.  Does any one have suggestions as to what I could be doing wrong? Is it a hardware prob?  Any help or tips would be great.

[Raptor]

You should set IDE 0 or 1 as the first boot device. It will boot faster and not check for the CD unless the harddrive fails to boot.

[Phillip]

I tried the following and I still get the same <boot from CD:> message followed by boot disk failure, insert sys disk and press enter.  Could the hd be bad?

[Raptor]

Did you format the harddrive before attempting to install Windows?

[merlin_2]

winxp loves loads of ram...is your ides cables the wrong way round.........red stripe towards the power plug...

[Phillip]

Yes, I did format the hd before installing windows.  As for the cables, I'll recheck it.

[chris48083]

do you have your ribbon connectors set right.  The primary ribbon cable must go to the boot drive. the boot drive must be the master on that conection.

[Phillip]

Here's where I stand now.  Ive reset the Bios.  The boot drive is on IDE1 of the mainboard.  the cdrom is on IDE2. In the bios, boot sequence is hdd-1 , then cdrom. Ive checked the ribbon cables and they are seated well and connections are good.  I reformatted the hd and inserted win xp pro disk. windows loads up but when the computer reboots, I get <disk boot failure, plz insert sys dsk and press enter>.  I ve only put 2 computers together in the past and I have never encountered this sort of problem.  Im at a stand still on this....plz help

[Raptor]

Is it a legal copy of Windows XP?

[merlin_2]

maybe the hard drive is on its way out>
run the appropriate disk diagnostic program
www.fujitsu.com
http://www.storage.ibm.com/hdd/support/download.htm
www.maxtor.com
www.seagate.com
www.wdc.com/service/ftp/drives.html
www.westerndigital.com

[Psykedout]

Thanks for the help.  Well I got everything working.  All I did was put the jumpers on the hd and cdrom to cable select instead of master. Seem to fix all my woes.  Thanks for the help fellas!!