Brand New System Won't Boot from Disc

[cowdood]

My new system came in today...I finally got it put together, but it won't boot from a windows xp professional 64-bit disc. I get the message:

Reboot and select proper boot device
or Insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key

When I do this, it just repeats. The drive spins so I know it's working...

It's an Asus P5QL pro mobo. When I first power up, it gives me an error message that express gate is not installed and that I should install it. Then that goes away and it goes to the asus boot screen, then to the boot message above. Anyone know what I could do?

Also, I just realized my sata hard drive is not being found. would that have something to do with not being able to boot an os? how can i fix this?

 

[eyeCpc]

Check the bios settings to see if the onboard sata/Raid controllers are enabled. You likely will need to make up a driver disk since XP installers even the 64bit edition sadly lacked good detection for sata hard drives.

The particular chipset on the board can also hamper things without first seeing the drivers needed loaded by the Windows installer. The first screen sees the F6 option to load drivers from a floppy disk or when having a second optical drive and a driver cd burned for this.

The software cd that comes with the board should have the utility section seen there for creating a driver disk. Otherwise you need to take a trip to the Asus support site for that.

For the problem booting from the XP 64 disk see if the board has the F8 boot device option seen on at post next to the press del to enter bios setup. That will bring up the list of floppy, optical, and hard drives installed on the system where you choose the optical drive you are using. If the installer fails to load you may be looking at a bad drive or bad Windows disk.

 

[cowdood]

The problem is, the motherboard cd that came with it isn't recognized either. It gives the same boot message. In the Boot options in the bios I noticed that my hard drive was listed in Boot Device Priority... It says

1st boot device 1st floppy drive
2nd boot device ATAPI CD-ROM
3rd boot device SATA: SM-WDC WD6400

I'm assuming that's my western digital 640 gig drive, but it still says Hard drive not detected while booting up. Hm.

Also, my mobo doesn't support raid so I don't think that's the problem.


EDIT

Got it to boot from disc. The HDD still shows up as not detected, but it's there in the bios and seems to be working. I am now formatting the drive which is taking very long; I thought it went fast but we'll see what happens.

 

[eyeCpc]

Ok that boot order should allow you to disable the floppy drive option to start with and set the hard drive as the first. For booting from the Windows disk you simply press the F1 option likely on the system there and select the optical drive.

Another option besides pressing the F6 option on the first install screen to load drivers from a driver disk is to wait for the second where you see the press S for special devices option. That will bring up a new screen where you choose the chipset closest to what the specifications for your board show.

On some older model boards that will allow the XP installers to see a sata drive in order to get Windows on. From the list you want the closest chipset to the "Intel® P43 / ICH10" number shown in the specifications. http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=2307&l1=3&l2=11&l3=710&l4=0

 

[Tommy Boy]

The problem is, the motherboard cd that came with it isn't recognized either. It gives the same boot message. In the Boot options in the bios I noticed that my hard drive was listed in Boot Device Priority... It says

1st boot device 1st floppy drive
2nd boot device ATAPI CD-ROM
3rd boot device SATA: SM-WDC WD6400

I'm assuming that's my western digital 640 gig drive, but it still says Hard drive not detected while booting up. Hm.

Also, my mobo doesn't support raid so I don't think that's the problem.


EDIT

Got it to boot from disc. The HDD still shows up as not detected, but it's there in the bios and seems to be working. I am now formatting the drive which is taking very long; I thought it went fast but we'll see what happens.

What did you do to get it to boot from the XP disc? The last machine I built didn't have a problem detecting a SATA HDD nor did it have a problem booting from the cd. You shouldn't have had a problem booting from the cd either since the boot order was set correctly. I'm pretty sure they come set that way out of the box.

As for the HDD not being recognized still, everything should be okay once you get it formatted, and yes, formatting a 640gb drive will take a little while.

 

[cowdood]

I just tried several times and it finally recognized the boot disk. When I turn it on, it still says the hard drive is undetected, but I'm using the computer/hard drive right now.

 

[eyeCpc]

Seeing the floppy drive set as the first in the order(probably none installed) followed by the optical drive the bios is looking for bootable media or boot information there before looking at the hard drive. Without a floppy drive installed you should disable the floppy search and set the hard drive as first in the boot order to avoid seeing the constant boot error message.