Since you guys did so good with the last one...

[Niffoni]

Alright! I'm making you guys my official tech support team =p

So all the hardware for my new computer's in place. It's time to load up XP. Because I enjoy pain.

The first time, my (legit) XP Pro CD loaded fine. It asked me to press enter, but sadly my USB keyboard was not recognized. No problem, I have a spare...

The problem is that it won't take me to the setup screen anymore after I reboot the computer. It just tells me what I've got, and sits there. The bios suggests everything's fine from my limited understanding of it. What did I break this time?

In fact... this can be my weekly post! "What Did I Screw Up This Time?"

[Zaelath]

Do you have both keyboards connected? I've found a few USB devices that will stop a computer booting.. and it's likely to be upset about having two different keyboards.

[Niffoni]

Hmm, no, but my mouse was USB. Interesting thought.

EDIT: Sadly, no go. The XP cd loaded a bunch of stuff before asking me to hit enter and I had to reboot. Maybe that's why it won't load again.

[Zaelath]

Ah ok, your BIOS is probably set up with a boot order of:

HDD0
CDROM

(or similar)

So when you first booted there was no boot sector on the HDD so it looked at the CDROM; hence you got an install screen.

If you get part way through it's put a boot sector on the HDD but it basically points to nothing.

Go into the BIOS and set your boot order to:

CDROM
HDD0

[Niffoni]

Thanks, Zae! I'll try this tonight after work.

[masteen]

You also might want to make sure to do a new install from stratch, and format the drive again as well.

[Niffoni]

Hooray! Zae was right. Now I just have to see if I can set my old HD up as a slave to recover my files. Thanks guys.