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Clean Install on NEW HDD


LqDFx

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So I just bought a new 80GB HDD drive to replace the 12GB system HDD on my computer. When I try to install XP SP2 on the drive it will go through the txt based install and then restart the computer to finish with the GUI install. The GUI will not start due to a boot error. The computer thinks there is no files to boot from on the HDD. I have reformated the HDD a couple times to try again, but I always get the same error. This drive was taken from the box and installed into the PC as a single drive. I have replaced the old 12GB in the system to test if the HDD is good and can be wrote to as a secondary drive. It can be and since then I have reformated it again and tried to install it as a single drive (jumpered to single) and I get the same error.

Any idea as to what is going wrong?

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Western Digital.

That's about the simplest two word answer I've ever heard for a complex question. :whistle:

In all seriousness......does your motherboard properly identify the drive in the Bios setup?

If the system was designed for a 12 gig drive, it must be very old.....not able to properly handle a 80 gig drive at all.

Just maybe.....

:ph34r:

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If it worked with a 12 Gb HD, it cannot be the infamous 8 Gb barrier, nor Win9x specific ones since it is XP....

...the only possible "hard disk barrier" that could be involved should be the:

The 65,536 Cylinder (31.5 GiB / 33.8 GB) Barrier

(search for the quoted text above on this page: http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/...ze_barriers.htm )

That should be resolvable through a BIOS update.

jaclaz

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You don't specify the error, but are you using a third party program to format the HDD?

If so many of these programs try to use a cluster size other than 4 KB which XP uses as default. I have found that using the XP default is the best course of action in order to prevent these kind of errors.

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Western Digital.

That's about the simplest two word answer I've ever heard for a complex question. :whistle:

:blink: My HDD is a Seagate, that's one word. Have a whistle at me. Tinker didn't ask for specifics. Although, the brand name is irrelevant when troubleshooting a HDD problem. It can happen to any HDD.

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If it worked with a 12 Gb HD, it cannot be the infamous 8 Gb barrier

Warning, there's another barrier, too, known as the dreaded 32 GB limit, with pre-2001 PCs.

Yep, that is the one I pointed to:

The 65,536 Cylinder (31.5 GiB / 33.8 GB) Barrier

jaclaz

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The PC is just over a year old and the motherboard docs say that it will support up to 500GB. I have had a 300GB in it untill it died. BIOS properly ids the drive.

The error is just "No operating system found." Simple. It is as if the install is not writing to the MBR. Not sure why?

I am using the format in the WinXP install to format the drive. I was thinking of using BartPE to FDISK the partion tables, format the drive, and then reboot with the WinXP disk to see if that will allow me to get the OS installed.

The only reason I want to get the 12GB out of the system now is to get all my drive up to 7200 RPM and UDMA. The 12GB is neither.

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The PC is just over a year old and the motherboard docs say that it will support up to 500GB. I have had a 300GB in it untill it died. BIOS properly ids the drive.

The error is just "No operating system found." Simple. It is as if the install is not writing to the MBR. Not sure why?

I am using the format in the WinXP install to format the drive. I was thinking of using BartPE to FDISK the partion tables, format the drive, and then reboot with the WinXP disk to see if that will allow me to get the OS installed.

The only reason I want to get the 12GB out of the system now is to get all my drive up to 7200 RPM and UDMA. The 12GB is neither.

If you use BartPE, you may be actually able to see if the Windows installation routine is actually writing any files to the disk. Also, I don't know if you have done this yet, but I would actually go into the BIOS and make sure the drive is being correctly identified and labled as a boot device.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After having the system totally crash on me and getting some free time where I was not at work or working on the car, I finally have gotten time to get the pc fixed!

So here is the run down of what I found:

1) My laptop is slow and sux! :unsure:

2) The software that came with the WD HDD sux and is not capable of doing its job! :realmad:

3) BartPE worked wonders and thanks to this fine piece of software I am now up and running again! :thumbup

The problem was that the WD Safeguard tools was not properly formating the drive to let windows install on it. Windows was seeing a blank disk with no MBR, no partions, and no free space. Therefore it was seeing no drive at all. I would think that the Windows installer would be able to so a drive that needs to be partioned and formated, but I was wrong. Now that I have that cleared up I can get the other drives in the system and get everything else installed.

Also, can anyone tell me if a 20GB partion is big enough for Vista? I plan to have the OS only in this partion, all data and programs will go onto a seperate partition.

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