[digi_astrid]

hey I just built my first pc all by myself woo hoo, not. I decided to try out vista, I know I know the nerds in the rooms have told me, but I figured I was gonna end up having to get used to it and thought I'd learn by stumbling about with it like I did when xp came out. well one of my hard drives was bad so I sent it back and I'm getting a new one, but still have a 250g hd so I'm trying to set that up as master, got some issues. I keep getting bootmgr missing press crl alt delete to restart. if I go to the bios I get that its not identifing my processor wich came with it in a barebones kit. so any idea or generall advice. this is my first build and I picked out all the parts just want it get going already.
thanks
Taby

[MMJ]

Can you be more descriptive?

How did you set up the 250gig "as the master"?

[digi_astrid]

the hd that went bad was set up as the primary ide drive so I've taken is out and sent it back. I'm getting another in about 3 days. I still have what was set up as a slave drive so I just set the jumpers to master and moved to the primary. I realize I prolly need to reinstall the os but can't seem to get it to boot from the disk and now my bios says it doesn't know what kind of processor I have besides that its amd, and that overclocking has failed. I downloaded newer drivers with this laptop and put on a disk but can't really load without a os. I'm afraid programs aren't my fortae.
Taby

[crjdriver]

The reason you get the message is that when you loaded the os, it put some files on the root of the primary [boot] drive. That has been removed so you get the message. It is NOT necessary to reinstall; just repair the boot files.

I assume you have xp so just boot with the xp CD and enter the recovery console. Type this in hitting enter after each line.

FIXBOOT, answer Yes
CD \
ATTRIB -H NTLDR
ATTRIB -S NTLDR
ATTRIB -R NTLDR
ATTRIB -H NTDETECT.COM
ATTRIB -S NTDETECT.COM
ATTRIB -R NTDETECT.COM
COPY X:\I386\NTLDR C:\
COPY X:\I386\NTDETECT.COM C:

Note X is the letter of your CD drive.

You will need to enter the bios and make sure the CD is the first boot device. Save settings and restart with the xp CD in the drive.

[digi_astrid]

well the only xp cds I have are the disks that came with old systems so no just plain old xp disks. I've gone into the first boot to be from the dvd drive in the bios thats not doing anything I'm really at a loss on what to do. I"ve been thru the bios and tried my disks. I don't care about reinstalling if thats what I need I only had the computer up for like a day and found out the hard drive was bad and I sent it back. all the parts are new and I put them together just recently.

[crjdriver]

First of all you cannot use an xp disk that came with another system. This is for two reasons.

1 Most of the time it will not work. When you try and do an install with a disk that came with a system, it does a hardware or bios check. If it does not find the hw it thinks it should find, it does not run.

2 It in not legal. When you buy xp with a pre-built system, it [XP] is bound to the original hardware. You cannot install it on another system; it is a violation of the eula.

When you build a system, you must also purchase the os [unless you have a full retail version of windows, in that case you CAN transfer the os to another system]

[digi_astrid]

so I guess I'm gonna have to buy xp as well as I figured