this is so frustrating.

I am working on a dell optiplex GX270, bios version A04. I just bought a brand new WD hard drive, 160 gig.. (WD1600JB) off ebay. It did not come with any ide cable or the software. I did not think this would be a problem because i figured i could download the software from the website.

I download the software for the harddrive, burned it to a cd, changed the boot sequence inserted the disk and all i get is strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup utility.

The hard drive is being read... in the BIOS setup, i can see it under drive configuration, under the pimary master drive.... when i click on it, it says drive type atuo, capacity, 160gig. Model number WDC WD1600JB-00REA0.

I also have a win xp cd, and when i insert it, it does the exact thing,
strike F1 to retry boot, f2 for setup.

Any help or suggestions. I am frustrated right now.

I even tried going into the Boot Device Menu by pressing f12.... the windows XP cd is in the computer right now. I chose the IDE CD-ROM Device which is option 5, it still says strike F1 to reboot, F2 for setup utility

This post has been edited by mrq201: Mar 15 2008, 06:09 PM

ok i used a floppy disk to partition and get the hard drive ready for the OS XP install. Now i am getting the error, NTLDR is missing. Press ctrl+atl+ del to restart. I have numerous and extensive research about this and so far, i have gotten no luck. I am completely lost at this point.

Sounds like you are not actually booting from the CD. Is the light on the CD coming on at boot up. Check your cables to the HD and CD. How are the devices attached to the cable?
Are you using 1 cable for the HD and CD?
How are the jumbers set on the HD and CD? Are they master, slave, or cable select?
All this makes a difference.

When you create a bootable CD, you have to make it bootable thru a program like Nero. You can't just "copy".

ok im not at the pc right now but the hdd was set to cable select and right no ive removed the jumper blocks from the hdd. it is still being recognized in the bios setup tho. the hdd is connected viaa one ide cable directly to the mobo. the cd i have is an xp cd. i actually tried that same cd in another machine and i get the prompt press any key to boot from cd. its actually when i try to install xp onto that hard drive i get the error. i went as far as hooking up the hard drive to an hp machine because i thought that the cdrom on the dell was messed up. on both machines, the hp and the dell i get the the message ntrlr is missing.....what should i do now.

I guess i now know why the western digital hardrive software i downloaded did not work after i burned the cd..( i didnt do the bootable thing in nero).

any other advice?

This post has been edited by mrq201: Mar 16 2008, 11:44 AM

Ok, a little update, I finally got it to boot from the cd. I have a 160 gig hard drive, but for some reason it is saying that i only have 32249 MB free on the NTFS partition1 drive. Even in the bios setup, it is saying that i have 32280 MB. I remember when i first installed it, it said that i had 160GIG. Any idea as to why it is saying this??

32 gb I believe is a limitation on Fat32 formatting. You previously formatted it with a floppy.
Let the CD format it as a ntfs.

i dont think i formatted it with a floppy disk and right now i am have and am using the windows cd to create the partition.

ok i installed xp and in my computer i am seeing that i have a NTFS partition..Is there a way to recover my entire 160 gigs????