"Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter"?

Question

I just yesterday received my PC parts and got to work putting it together.
The system is using an ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard, AMD Athlon 64x 3000+ Processor, 2x nVidia 9600GT, and a Western Digital 320GB HDD.

After connecting anything, I booted it up for the first time, and entered BIOS. I configured everything and went to "SAVE AND EXIT", and the PC rebooted. First the main logo appeared (Allowing me to press DEL to enter BIOS), and then the screen went all black and gave me this message. I put my WinXP DVD in, pressed enter, and after a few seconds the message reappeared. Whats wrong?

Additional Information:
In the BIOS, the boot setup is set to Hard Drive, CDROM, Removable, Disabled (I have no floppy drive). It was origionally CDROM, then Hard Drive, but that didn't work.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.

This is a brand new PC, and none of these parts have been used yet, so I have never installed any OS's on it.

The DVD Drive IS listed in the BIOS, as is the Hard Drive (Under SATA1, if that makes any difference...)
I tried having the boot setting CDROM, HDD, Removable, Disabled, and HDD, CDROM, Removable, Disabled. Both ways I get the same message.

The board is brand new, so the the battery should be fine. The clock (if you mean system time) is also set.

It shouldn't be the DVD, either, since I put it into another PC and the autorun ran.

Okay... I moved ahead a little... I think. Turns out that the cable I was using to connect the HDD to the mobo wasn't the right one; it was from another motherboard. I checked inside the box, and sure enough the correct cable was laying inside. I connected it, but I'm still getting the error.

I also changed DVD players, to see if the old one was faulty. I know this one works.

Its recognized in the BIOS as the Master, but I'm still getting this error.

Answer 1

first check that the hard drive is connected with the power.
Then if it still doesn't loads, go to bios and check if it lists your hard drive. If it doesn't, go to every one of the bios sections and click on scan( somethin' like that).
If it shows that the hard drive exists, then go to cmos and choose from first/second/third boot device as hard disk to load(choose either one). That should work. If all else fails, that means that either your hard drive is corrupted, or it is empty, or the operating system is corrupted and cannot be scanned.

Answer 2

Is the battery for BIOS new and did you set the clock?
Check all of the cable connections, take them out, look at them and rehook them.
Make sure your RAM cards have clean contacts and are fitted in properly.
Lastly, it doesn't matter what boots first, the time lost between your HDD and DVd is barely negligible.
I do hope you do have a DVD ROM player don't you?
A cd is not fast enough to read the O.S. disk properly.
For more performance tips go to the site below.

Answer 3

Make sure you leave the installation disc in the drive and leave your boot ordering to have the hard drive booted last. Also make sure there is nothing wrong with the CD or DVD.
Which version of Windows are you trying to install? (I can't quite remember XP being officially released onto a DVD, unless of course you are using a slipstreamed version).

Another thing I would try in your case is to see if a live distribution of Linux (like Ubuntu) or maybe BartPE is able to load using your current setup, just to make sure there is nothing wrong with your optical drive.

Did you also try removing one of your video cards and doing a non-SLI configuration temporarily? (You should be able to install the 2nd video card and enable SLI after Windows completes installation).

Answer 4

Make sure its actually seeing your drives. They should be listed in the BIOS. I know some of those BIOS may have IDE turned off since it is so heavy into SATA. There is a little plug on each drive, be it DVD rom or IDE hard drive to set for Master or Slave. Two drives on one cable must be set for 1 each. 1 drive on it's own cable must be set for master.

I assume your hard drive is alone in it's SATA cable, since the board has 6 of them, and your optical is actually a DVD since you did mention it is a vista DVD, but I had to say it

Answer 5

have you ever replaced something? as in new working device, any hardware like new cpu or motherboard? Are you working domicile windows. Does the workstation submit ok earlier this mistake. The the text fabric earlier hand and notice if the device sees the not elementary force. have you ever been interior the bios placing and altered something inadvertently.

Answer 6

You need to have the CD read it first, change the order or hit ESC or F12 or F10 depending on your setup to change the boot order there