I just put together a computer for my dad and booted it up, got the "reboot and select proper boot device..." so I put in the winxp cd, pressed a key, and it restated the message. So I restarted with the cd in the drive, and it still wouldnt boot from it. I have 2 cd-rom DRIVES installed (older ones from my dads previous computer), and in the Bios, it reads both of them as being CONNECTED, as well as the hdd. I changed the boot order from Floppy, PRIMARY CD-Rom, HDD to Primary CD-Rom, Floppy, HDD. That didnt work either. Im thinking the cd rom drives may be busted, since they quit working on the OLD computer too. So I guess i'll switch out a known working drive and see if that works. Does that sound like a good plan of ACTION?

System Specs:
400w ps
4x4x32 cd-rw
8x4x32 cd-rw
Floppy drive
asus k8n mobo (brand new)
nvidia 5200 256mb (brand new)
256 ddr2 ram (brand new)
160gb wd hdd (brand new, no previous OS)swapping the cd drives sounds like a good idea. let us know how it turns out.

P.S. im assuming your hdd is IDE, because you didnt specify.Yeah, the cd-rom drives were busted. Switching a known working drive in worked. And the hdd is sata. So everything is all good now. =)thats good to hear.