Cannot Load Installer from XP Pro CD

[R.C.Call]

I'm having an infuriating problem trying to boot from my XP Pro CD so
that I can either run the recovery console or reinstall:

I get the "hit any key to boot from CD" prompt. I hit a key. The CD
then begins to boot, and I see the message, "Setup is inspecting your
computer's hardware configuration." After that, I get a blank screen.

The strangest thing about this is that the problem goes away if I change
the hard drive boot sequence in my BIOS.

I have two IDE drives and one SATA drive in the system. Windows is
installed on the SATA drive. If I put the SATA drive as the first drive
in the BIOS boot sequence, I get the problem described above. If I put
the SATA drive as the second or third one in the sequence, the XP CD
boots fine.

So it would seem that XP is examining the hardware configuration,
getting confused somewhere, and hanging. But what to do?

The really nasty part about this is that if I configure the BIOS so that
I can boot from the CD, Windows then recognizes one of the IDE drives as
"C:"--which means that the Recovery Console won't work. In particular,
BOOTCFG will write only to C:\boot.ini, so I can't repair the boot.ini
file. And I suspect that if I try a clean install to D: (where D is the
SATA drive), things will go very badly.

Can anyone shed some light on this?

 

[Guest]

In the BIOS,set youre cdrom with xp in it as 1st boot drive,boot to xp
cd,press
F6,have youre SATA drivers on a floppy disk,install the drivers,(you need to
see the text,"installing drivers"),then continue on to xp cd boot screen.

 

[R. Christian Call]

Ah, but that's exactly what I *can't* do. The problem is that the
Windows XP install disk begins to boot, gets as far as the "inspecting
hardware" screen, then dies. It never makes it as far as the "press F6
if you need to install drivers" screen, alas!

-- Chris