Me again...

Are you sure it's actually booting from the Windows CD? If it's trying to boot from the new hard drive, that's exactly the error message you'd expect. Reboot and press F12. Select "Boot from CD" from the menu. But confirm that SATA Mode is set to IDE otherwise XP won't install even if it's booting from the CD.

And don't forget you have to format the new hard drive before you can install Windows on it. :emotion-5:

Ron

Run BIOS setup (reboot and press F2) and look for the SATA Mode setting. Change it to IDE.  Save the change, put the Windows CD in the optical drive and exit setup. It should boot from the CD.

After you install Windows, you have to install the drivers for XP in the correct order. Windows followed by:

System Utitlities (Desktop System Software)

Chipset driver

Video driver

Network driver

Modem driver

SATA driver

Etc.

After you install the SATA driver, you have to reboot and go back into BIOS setup to change the SATA Mode setting back to AHCI, otherwise it won't boot.

Obviously, you need to know what video card, audio card etc you have so you can install the correct drivers for each component.

Ron

 

Thanks Ron,

I already tried that and changed the drive type to IDE and the only thing it did was change the cd drive type, still gives me the error " no boot device available.  I even tried plugging the cd and hd into different sata ports.  It recognized them fine but will not boot from cd.  wondering if my cd player is toast too.  can hear it spin, but wont read the disk, doesn't sound like it spins like its ready, you know how it winds up... I have inspected the mother board and dont see any obvious problems, chip is seated correctly, clock battery in place, all memory modules seated correctly.  I even tried booting off of a usb drive but it wont see it.

Any other ideas?  I don't have a spare cd, but I could grab one out of this pc just to try?  sounds weird but maybe. 

Brian

Thats exactly what I did.  It says boot from cd: and it hangs for about 2 min. before giving the error: "no boot device available"

Its crazy I've never had one do this before. 

Thats exactly what I did.  It says boot from cd: and it hangs for about 2 min. before giving the error: "no boot device available"

Its crazy I've never had one do this before.

It's possible the CD drive failed. It's also possible you have a bum Windows Reinstallation CD. Can you boot a different PC with that disk?

You can try this too. Put the old hard drive back in but turn the CD drive off it BIOS setup. Will it boot now..?

Ron

I have a handful of windows disks (including different service packs) and several different dell boot diaganostics disks.  they all work in other pcs.  I unplugged the cd drive and set the boot order to boot from HD.  It errors out right after the windows splash.  Nothing will load.  I might try to hook it up as an external drive and check the errors or take the new drive and try to format it off of a running pc then install it.  I guess then if it doesn't work I know its an MOBO issue? I might try a different cd player as well.  Freaking weird issue huh?
thanks for all of your help.

Brian

When you removed/reinstalled the motherboard battery, are you sure it really reset BIOS? eg, did you press/hold the power button for ~30 sec?

Also remember that with the old hard drive you may need to change BIOS SATA Mode to AHCI before it will boot. IDE probably won't work if SATA drivers were installed in Windows.

If none of that works, strip it down to barest essentials. Remove all PCI cards, except video, disconnect all optical drives, etc. Reseat RAM modules in their slots. Then reset BIOS by removing the battery and pressing the power button for ~30 sec. After you reinstall the battery, reboot and go into BIOS setup to change SATA Mode to AHCI, since IDE is the default setting.

BTW: Do you know if the battery is any good? A weak battery may prevent BIOS from holding settings (eg, AHCI) and that could cause it to fail too.

Ron

 

Ron, thanks for all of your help.  I finally got it!  I replaced the Hard drive, the battery , and the dvd/cd and it booted right from the window's disk.  Weird issue that all would be bad at once.  I tried them piece by piece obviously and it was a combination of all 3.  Now I start the pain staking task of spending a day loading software.  Thanks again for all of your help!

Brian

Glad you got it sorted out. :emotion-21:

Pretty odd both the hard and optical drives failed at the same time. Did you perhaps have a power surge?

Make sure you load the right drivers in the correct order:

Windows followed in order by System Utilities, chipset driver, video driver, audio driver, network driver, etc

Ron