Problems installing Win2k, help requested

I'm having a few problems installing Win2k on a new HD of mine, its meant for a rig I'm building and put together yesterday, but upon trying to install win2k on it, I hit some pretty major problems.
The actual computer works, I have tested the CPU (2500+) and graphics card, I also have the same motherboard (NF7-s v2) and CD drive (Sony CRX300E). The Hard Disk is a Maxtor 80GB 2mb cache drive.

After making it boot from CD, with the win 2k + SP4 CD in there, (I slipstreamed service pack 4 in to the win2k installationg on the CD) you press any key to boot from it, let it load all the components, and then do as usual, select the partition and tell it to format and install, it formats and puts the files on the HD, however when it restarts to boot from the files it has just written to the HD, it simply says "Error Loading Operating System"

I know the HD works because I have tried it in other machines and from windows you can view all the files it originally installs. I have also tried installing from a different computer and that is also unsucessful. I have made sure it is booting from the right HD, it only says "Error Loading Operating System" from that HD, my RAID array and other HD are fine.

Ideas...anyone?

What is the drive jumper set to and where is the drive? (slave or master) If it is a WD drive try to set the jumper to cable select.

Its a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 80GB 2MB Cache, its set as master on IDE1, though when I originally tried, it was master on IDE0 so that really didn't make much difference.

I have also tried booting using the win2k CD again and in the recovery console typing fixboot, and fixmbr, however they had no effect either...any other suggestions?

Run the Maxtor utilities diagnostics first. If that passes, it may be MFT corruption. To fix it get Zap from here:

http://www.microstorage.com/Harddriveinfo.htm

Download and put the exe on a DOS boot disk(or a bootable DOS CD). The syntax is "zap 0" for the primary master on IDE0. Remove any other HDDs before using this utility as it will write zeros to the first 128 sectors of the disk. Once complete(takes a couple of seconds to run), install as normal and you should be running.

I can't run the Maxtor diagnostic tools - I quote from their site "PowerMax v4.06 will not detect Ultra ATA hard disks connected to motherboards with embedded NVIDIA chipsets" this is on an NF7-s which is nVidia based, so no got there...

I will give Zap a go.

Xaotic said:

Run the Maxtor utilities diagnostics first. If that passes, it may be MFT corruption. To fix it get Zap from here:

http://www.microstorage.com/Harddriveinfo.htm

Download and put the exe on a DOS boot disk(or a bootable DOS CD). The syntax is "zap 0" for the primary master on IDE0. Remove any other HDDs before using this utility as it will write zeros to the first 128 sectors of the disk. Once complete(takes a couple of seconds to run), install as normal and you should be running.

Click to expand...

Just to clarify, does the HD need reformatting after zapping or do you just install without a reformat?

Change access modes in the BIOS, and check boot sequence.

Excellent, Zap worked, thanks guys.