OK, I'll try to make this short, I have a compaq p3 800 mhz which I just added a maxtor 80 gb hard drive, after that, I tryed to put windows 2000 on and as soon as I had it downloaded, the computer stalled and will not go back into windows, it starts up and then it seems that I am in DOS and it says "Can't find operating system, press any key to try again." * Does anybody know what the problem could be?

Format the hard drive and create your primary partition and install windows over, it sounds like you had a problem loading windows, and actually i have heared of a couple HD`s being faulty out of the box.

The thing is.....how can I format it when I can't get it to leave the "Can't find operating system, press any key to try again." screen?

Do you have a set of Dos disks??

I have a "DOS Driver" from an old computer, I tried using the system recovery disk and it doesn't leave that stupid "Can't find operating system, press any key to try again." page. *I put in the windows 98 CD and it gets to the blue screen of MS-dos and then when it says "Configuring Hardware" it stalls and takes me to A prompt



Either way, I'm so confused *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleeping.gif

Ok if u dont have a good set of dos disks do u know how to go into the setup screen and make the computer boot up from the cd rom

Yes....it has taken me to a screen where it gives me 2 options and option 1 is "Boot from Hard Drive" and option 2 is "Boot from CD" *I chose CD and then it takes me to a screen with 3 choices and they are 1. Boot from windows CD 2. Boot from other CD 3. Go back to previous screen *

I usually hit 2 and try to boot using the system recovery disk but then it stalls and I have a sudden urge to throw it out the window. *

I have hit 1 once and it takes me to the blue screen and it stops on "Configuring Hardware" and then back to DOS.

I'm beginning to think the old hard drive has errors on it and that is the drive which I boot from.

what exactly are u doing here, did you just add that 80 gig to an old system to slave it off the old HD??? or is that 80 the only one in the system, also what are the specs of the comp u just put this HD in to.

oh i just looked up top and its a p3 800 http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

I picked the computer up off a friend who knows squat about computers and is very spoiled *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

The harddrive that is in it is a 10 gig and had about 400 mb left. *I had a great deal on that 80 so I went for it.

thanks for your help justin, but I'm gonna put it away for the night, I'll respond tomorrow, thanks.

I assume you still have the 10 gig hard drive right? *Anything on it you need to keep? *Put it back in and see if you can get the machine working. *From the sound of it, you may be having a BIOS support problem with the 80 gig drive.

Try to slave the 80 gig and see if you can get access to it in this manner. *If not, then I would suspect either the already mentioned bad drive (not likely), or a BIOS issue. *You may have to look for an update for the BIOS through the manufacturer of your motherboard, or go with a smaller drive.

thats what i was implying wolfman that the board will not support that 80 giger.

I still have the 10 gig in and I have the 80 slave'd but it doesn't seem to be the 80 which messed it up, I disconnected it and same results *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mad.gif

steve take out that old 10 gig which is probably shot and use that new 80 for your master, 80 gigs should be plenty space unless you are really big into XXX or somthing. *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

All hope is not lost. *Take the 10 gig, and slave it to install in the PC that you're using now to read here. *If the drive is good, it'll come up. *Kill the partition on that drive. *Repeat with the 80 gig drive.

Set the 10 gig as a single/master drive and reinstall the Win2k OS on the other PC. *Get the machine up and running, and then try again to slave the 80 gig drive to the 10 gig. *If the bios will support it, the 80 gig drive should come up.

http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/withstupid.gif im not thinking tonight that would be a good idea to try it first in a machine thats already running. *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleepy.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sleeping.gif

Our puter won't print color and the sound card stopped working after installing a new hd from gateway and they can't figure out why.
caleb

computerworld.com http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif

seriously, one hour at your local computer shop will free up alot of time to prep your sled http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sly.gif

Caleb, go into device manager and see if there are any conflicts with the sound card. *It could be that the drivers could have been knocked out with the swap.

jwheeler, Wolfman, you guys rock on this puter stuff *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
It's good to have help on here.

Other places I have found very helpful for my problems (and I have lots of problems):
http://www.aumha.org/index.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/community/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx

Steven, I would try that option#1 to Boot From Windows CD. *That should give you an option to format your drive and install windows. *Do that. *I believe any time you install an new drive or new processor the drive has to be formatted for the processor.

You can swap processors without reformatting. *I swapped from a duron 900 to a XP2100+ without any problem. *Did you make sure to set the jumpers on one to master and the other to slave. *Some drives have a setting for single or if there is no jumper are automatically set to single.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (toydoc @ Aug. 29, 2002, 06:48am)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">jwheeler, Wolfman, you guys rock on this puter stuff *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif
It&#39;s good to have help on here.

Other places I have found very helpful for my problems (and I have lots of problems):
http://www.aumha.org/index.htm
http://www.zdnet.com/community/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx[/b][/quote]
Hey thanx for the compliment!! * http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif * Glad that I can actually be useful for something around here! *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

How&#39;s the resurrection going???

Well, guys, I think I have it now, I put the 80 gig in the computer that works, I set it up with the correct o/s and I am going to bed and hopefully I will be able to put it in succesfully, thanks for all your help!

I think they are correct when they say the computer won&#39;t support 80 gigs. *I believe you have to partition the hard disk.

Just a thought.

I finally have it guys, I am using that computer right now, thanks for all of your help Justin (jwheeler) and Wolfman, I&#39;m sure that you saved me $100+ from doing it myself,

THANKS!
http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif *http://www.snowmobileworld-s2.com/forums/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif