Problems after installing a hard drive (1 Viewer)

[Kevin H]

I got a Maxtor 160GB 5400 RPM hard drive and installed it just now as a slave in Windows XP. I turned on my computer, went into the BIOS and it was able to detect it so i proceeded with the startup and as it went into windows it also detected it and did the found new hardware thing. I went into disk management to give it a letter and format it and started that process. As it was going to take a while I assumed, I left the room to watch TV.

About 5 -10 minutes later I walk in to see that my computer is off. I push the button to start it back up but it doens't work. I look in the back of the computer and the green power light isn't on. So I unplug the power cord from the COMP and wait a few seconds. I put it back in and the power light goes on, so I turn on the computer. It gets to windows and immediately turns off and again does the thing where it doesn't recognize the power until i take it out, wait a few seconds and put it back in.

So I open up my computer and unplug the power from the new hard drive. I boot it back up and it waits about 2 minutes before again turning off. I go back in and unplug the IDE cable from the new one so now it's just sitting there not connected to anything. I power it up and again it waits about 2 minutes before shutting down (while I was just in IE, nothing that should have made it start over). I then waited like 5 minutes, went in put the fan back in teh computer, put the cover back on and started it up.

And now this is where I am. My computer hasn't restarted yet and it's been up for half an hour and I've been on IE with winamp playing and talking on AIM.

Do you have any idea what would be causing this problem? Does it have something to do with the power source in my computer or what? A friend suggested I run system restore then try installing it again-- is there any way this would work? Please help

 

[Kevin P]

I then waited like 5 minutes, went in put the fan back in teh computer, put the cover back on and started it up.

You took a fan out? The machine was probably overheating and shutting down.

 

[Kevin H]

Sorry, I didn't take the fan out, I took the fan duct out.

 

[Neil Joseph]

Does your computer start up at least to the bios or is it failing when you get into windows? Does the same thing happen with the cover off? All fans are spinning? Nothing else unplugged or damaged by accident on the motherboard?

 

[Kevin H]

The computer fails once it gets into windows and the fans are spinning and I don't think I damaged anything while installing because everything's unplugged now and the comp works exactly as it did before

 

[Glenn Overholt]

Then it is a Windows problem. I'd boot from your CD with the Windows disk and see what happens.

Glenn

 

[Gary Neuwirth]

I've installed many harddrives and they never (and I mean never) install right for me on my first try.

I would recommend booting up with the floppy disk the harddrive came with and format the drive. Then do a normal bootup into windows. Good luck