Booting from the CD-ROM

I`m puzzled. I`m trying to install XP on a new hard drive, but the system won`t boot from the cd-rom. Even tried to change the cd drive with a brand new one, but still the same.

Celeron 700
Abit B6H Motherboard
320 SDRAM 133
Old HD 10 Gig
New HD 80 Gig

I have Windows XP Home bootable that I`ve install successfully before. Maybe something in the bios that I have to change, not sure. The new drive is formatted in fat32 and ready to use. I put it in slave with the old one, and it reads and writes fine.

I read in another post that the fast way to do it would be to clone the old drive, but no instructions came with the new one, so I`m not sure what to do. I don`t have Norton Ghost, is there another way?

Thanks for the advices

 

the boot sequence can be changed in the bios. Simply make it (the cd rom)the first bootable drive and you're on the way.

 

that`s what I checked first, it`s set to CDROM,A,C. It still won`t boot.

 

You could work around that by using a boot diskette, assuming you have a floppy drive.

XP Home Boot floppy

Download and run this file, follow screen directions to create your XP boot floppy that is made for the purpose.

 

How is the cd rom connected? I had the same thing happen to me....the cd rom was set as slave on ide 2. I had to make it a master on ide1 to work.

 

If you want to clone the old drive to the new one, this free program works very well:

CloneMaxx----> http://www.pcinspector.de/clone-maxx/uk/welcome.htm
Be sure to rearrange the drives before booting or you may get strange drive letter assignments. Take out the main drive, replace it with the cloned one, and boot up from the clone to be sure it is working before using the main drive as a secondary.

You might try some other configurations in the BIOS. It seems that some Gateways, in particular, don't pay sufficient attention to the boot order set in the BIOS and I've gotten them to boot from the CD by setting it second or third.

This single boot floppy will start setup for you:

http://users.adelphia.net/~abraxas/dl/MBOOT8.exe