XP won't recognize existing partition during install

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul W
  • Start date Start date
P

Paul W

I am currently trying to install XP on a new computer I
put together (ASUS P4T533-C motherboard, Western Digital
WD1200jb hard drive). I put the new drive in my old
machine (as a slave/secondary), and I partitioned the new
drive using software I downloaded from Western Digital's
website. I also formatted the drive (NTFS) on my old
machine, using XP. My old machine recognizes the drive
just fine and allowed the partition and format without a
problem. I copied a few files to the new drive just to
verify functionality of the new drive, and no problem, it
works.

But when I put the new drive in my new machine and try to
install XP, it doesn't recognize the partition I created,
and furthermore it won't even create a new one. If I
press "C" to create a new partition, it just goes to some
other screen with information about how it can't install
without a partition and when I press enter again it goes
back to the press "c" to partition screen. So, it gets
stuck in an edless loop. The drive is 120 Gb, and XP
install thinks it is 112 Gb even though the BIOS on the
new machine sees it as 120 Gb. I have updated my BIOS to
the latest version. Any advice on what to do in this
situation would be great.
 
I don't think that I had to activate it in a separate
step since I didn't create it with FDisk. I created it
with Western Digital Lifeguard which I assume
automatically activated it since I was then able to
format it and write files to it.
 
Boot from the Windows XP CD, and choose Repair Console. Delete all
partitions, and run Setup from the CD. Assuming you have the Upgrade Version
(which you should) of Windows XP, you may briefly need to insert a CD from
Windows Me or 98 to verify that you are an owner of a qualifying version.
To run a clean install, choose New Installation (Advanced) rather than
Upgrade, and follow the directions on the Setup wizard.
 
Thanks to everyone for their advice. It turns out that
the problem was with the IDE cable. I would have never
suspected this since it was brand new, but when I ran the
hard disk diagnostic software, it showed a cable error.
I guess there was a discontinuous wire in it somewhere.
What threw me off is that the hard drive was detected
correctly, but just because it was detected didn't mean
all was OK with it.

PW
 
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