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"Trouble installing Windows onto blankd HDD..."

Ordered all the components for a new PC. Built it. (Possibly fried some stuff in the process).

My problem is installing Windows. OEM version of XP Home. I just don't know how to get it started as the computer won't pass the Verifying DMI pool data part of the start up, just before Windows would load normally.

Anyway what makes things possibly that bit more complicated is that the HDD is a SATA drive. Motherboard is Abit NF7-S.

Just somebody PLEASE tell me what to do to get started.
Thanks

Step one:
Install motherboard onto motherboard tray (I presume it has one), making sure you use all the right studs. I had to put a few extra ones onto the tray, but they were supplied.

Step two:
Put thermal paste on the bottom of the heatsink. I bought a coolermaster applicator thing which had polythene template things so that you put the right amount on. Do that first.

Step three:
Fit processor to motherboard and heatsink over it. Due to the sheer size of the Jet 7 (Aero 7 lite probably rather large as well) I took the fan off the heatsink to fit it in.

Step four:
Fit motherboard tray to case chassis.

Step five:
Connect up the incredibly fiddly LED and power button connectors to the motherboard.

Step six:
Fit the hard drive, DVD drive, floppy drive to the chassis as well. But don't connect them up yet.

Step seven:
Fit case fans. These can be a right pain. The ones I bought had big screws that just bored into the plastic. So put the screws into the fan first to make the holes big enough. Actually one of my fans is held on with cable ties....

Step eight:
Fit RAM.

Step nine:
Fit graphics card.

Step ten:
Fit anything else.

Step eleven:
Connect everything up.

Step twelve:
Power on and install windows. As the hard drive is from the same range as mine I'll relate what I had to do.

Go into BIOS and set it to boot first from floppy, second from CD, third from SATA.

When I did that I put the XP disc in and setup began. However part of the way through it said it couldn't find a hard drive.

I restarted and when Windows setup began again I hit F6 to install SCSI or RAID drivers or whatever. Then it prompts you for a disk. At that point I used the disk that came with the mobo. Drivers installed and setup continued. Windows thought the SATA drivers were SCSI controller drivers, so ignore it. Just go by what the drivers say.

Once setup starts make sure you use NTFS formatting as it is much better. Wastes far less disk space.

Go have a coffee.

Come back when it is done.

And remember to change the BIOS again so it goes floppy, SATA, CD.

That covers everything. I suggest that sequence of fitting things because it causes the least hassle and leaves the most space for fitting other components.

Well, ive finally taken the plunge and ordered all of my bits.

AMD 2500+XP Barton £65.51
Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 Serial ATA 120GB 8MB Cache £74.91
DFI LanParty NFII Ultra-B (Socket A) Motherboard £106.93
Coolermaster Aero 7 Lite £15.86
Hercules 3D Prophet 9800SE All-in-Wonder 128MB DDR £160.39
Corsair 1GB DDR XMS2700LLPT TwinX (2x512MB) Platinum CAS2 £161.73
Lian LI PC 601 Aluminium Midi Tower £155

Now i have to look for a guide to put it all together..

*Googles*

I've just realised how little sense my last sentence in my last post made. To get the very fancy Corsair RAM (not all that fancy though, it's not the one with LEDs in it) would have cost me at least £75 extra over what I paid for the standard TwinMOS stuff.

cookie monster wrote:
> for a DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra-B, except i have no idea what all this
> CAS nonsense means.

A wise man once said: if you have no idea what something means then you don't need it. In the case of PCs that is complete rubbish: if you don't know what something means then it will be indispensible in 6 months. Unless that something is 5.25" floppies.

CAS latency is the amount of clock cycles it takes before data starts to process once a command is received. So the lower the better. CAS 2 is very good. My standard TwinMOS stuff is 2.5. I have to say though, that RAM is overkill if you're using a 333 FSB processor. It's great stuff, I nearly bought that exact set for my PC, but it was £75+ to just get standard stuff.

Interesting....

On another note does anyone know much about RAM?

Im looking at getting this;

Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200C2PT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2 (MY-030-CS)

for a DFI Lanparty NFII Ultra-B, except i have no idea what all this CAS nonsense means.

Yea also, why is there a Sapphire graphics card at 256MB out there for £50!??! I know they are modified Radeon cards but why still so cheap...is it rubbish or something?

So did I until I saw a 3000XP with 400 FSB on Ebuyer. It was also much cheaper. Got it and checked it. According to the codes on it, it is indeed 400 FSB. Was rather chuffed with that.

I thought it was only the 3200XP that had an FSB of 400.

Nope. It was all the extras that really pushed it up. And delivery.

I could have saved a fair whack keeping stuff, but it was a new PC from the ground up. Nothing was kept over from the old PC. And it was a week 29 Barton. Unlocked multipliers. But that's for another day...