Its a asus A8V the chipset is VIA K8T800Prook ...I have the manual ,but I have to go out for about 45 minutes ....... I'll be back then .


dl65 sounds good take a look at that ill be back in the morning..Your still here ....I was a bit longer than I thought.ok i am back have you noticed anything i could of done wrong?i do also get this ntldr missing error could that be the problem?And that happens only when i wait to long to press a bottomPress a bottom what?Sorry guys for butting in but don't you have to install the SATA drivers first with Windows XP?
As I seem to remember, the standard XP system does not RECOGNISE SATA drives.For starters, XP doesn't recognise SATA drives.

NTLDR is the remnants of when XP was the mainfrome Windows called Windows NT - it means NT LoaDeR. That appears when there's no operating system on the drive. I know DOS is supposed to be extinct now, but there's a tiny remnant of it underlying XP. So.

1.) Download the right SATA drivers for your hard drive. This might mean visiting ain INTERNET CAFE.

2.) Make sure the disc, whether floppy or CD, is bootable

3.) Install the drivers. Make sure the first drive to be looked at is the drive where the bootable disk with the drivers on is. If it's on a floppy, you'll have to change the startup sequence in BIOS to read the floppy first.

4.) Once the SATA drivers have been installed, remove the drivers disk you just used for the installation. Restart the COMPUTER. IF you have to change the sequence in BIOS so the CD-Rom is found first, do it now. If you've done a sequence change, put the Windows CD in the drive and restart the system.

5.) Touch wood (I pat my head), it SHOULD start installing Windows now. If not, try the following:-

Download a DOS startup disc. This'll be a floppy, you can download it from Bootdisk.com. There's other sites, too, Bootdisk I think is charging these days. It shouldn't be! Anyway.

Once you've got the startup disc downloaded and set up (hallo Internet cafe again!) then startup your system using it. You should get a C: prompt (Or maybe an A prompt. If you get the A:, then just tyhpe C: (no space) and press ENTER.

On the hard drive, create a directory called Windows. (MD Windows. There's a space between the MD and the Windows. MD means Make Directory. You physically type in the word Windows after the MD.

Change to that directory (CD Windows.) That will get you into your new empty FOLDER.Then create a directory called I386. Go into that. (MD I386, then CD I386.)

On the Windows disk, you'll find a whacking great folder called I386. Copy that into the O386 folder you're in on the hard disk. The one you've just created.

When it's copied over (it might take awhile) you'll find a file called Setup. Double-click on that. Because you're on the hard drive and everything else is now on the hard drive, it should recognise the hard drive and start setting Windows up. I386 is the main setup directory, you see. It might need to access the Windows CD-ROM for a few things, but it'll set most of itself up automatically.


Tell me if all that worked. If no, I'll tell you another way of doing it! But it should do, because it's ON the hard drive now!

Yours in friendship

Chris.Morato hasn't been back since November......of 2006