What do you do after installing hardware?

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The new hard drive is installed. How do you get it working so software can be installed?

BIOS does not recognize the floppy or CD drives. BIOS says either is Disabled/None in the Setup thingy. The red hard drive light is on constantly, no flickering.

Specs you might want to know:

Hard drive - Western Digital Caviar 160Gb EIDE

Motherboard - Asus A7V600-X
(BIOS - Award Medallion BIOS 6.0)

The POST says there're no devices for primary and secondary master and slave, while the hard drive is set as primary master the CD R/W is primary slave and the regular CD is secondary master.

Last thing POST tells me:

DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

Basically,

 

Ensure that the cabling is setup correctly, especially if your HD has not got keyed (notched) connectors. Check here for more info:

http://www.buildeasypc.com/hw/howto/insthdd2.htm

 

Hmm.

So, how can it get BIOS showing if the cables and pins aren't lined up? Isn't this a situation where it only works if things are done right?

 

If your hard drive (the one just installed) hasn't operative system (Windows), it won't work. So probably you have to format it first, so you will need the bootable Windows CD.
What you did? did you just connected the HD to the Mobo? Did you desconnected something else? Is set primary?

 

I took out the broken hard drive and hubby put in the new one. How do you format it before install? Do it on someone else's computer? I guess it's primary master; I don't know. I'm not fiddling with it because I broke the last one and the CPU before that.

 

In the BIOS settings, you have to set up the boot order, so guessing that you have the Windows install disk, you have to set so the first boot device is the DVD drive, then HD. Put the Windows install disk, reboot, and the DVD should boot the PC, then you'll have the options to format and all the Windows stuff.

 

How do you get BIOS to recognize a CD drive? The pair I have are either Disabled or None in BIOS; there's no option to turn them on.

I am computer stupid and my hubby only knows a lot about software. The guy I usually beg to do this left town and there's only so much you can understand through an email.

 

Odd. you did not tamper with any of the dvd/cd drives? They are still connected as thy where?
is the Hard drive ide or sata? (Sata small conection cable. Ide big flat connetion cable)

 

If you have them all connected correctly, including jumper settings, make sure that you did not disable any IDE controllers from the BIOS.

 

EIDE

What are those?

 

when you look at your boot order is it like this?

Primary HDD
Floppy
Disabled
Disabled
???

if so then you can select one of the disabled, and enable it.

 

The BIOS says something like:
HDD
Floppy drive [Disable/None]
One cd drive [Disable/None]
The other cd drive [Disable/None]

And my hubby is starting to get ideas about playing with his computer. He thinks a wire or 2 in mine might be shorted out. I'd rather he didn't because he gets very upset when he can't be on the computer. The last time we tried something that sounded plausible, I broke the CPU.

Is there a way to find out if a wire is the problem without messing up another computer?