kels

Well the thing is I don't see why it'd take 15 minutes to boot up. I could understand 5 minutes, but any more than that just seems insane. AS for Blako, I haven't installed drivers yet as I havent really thought it was worth it until I know everythings working. The computer also isn't connected to the internet, because it has the same copy of XP as this computer has, I'm not sure if that's okay or not. It's an OEM and I didn't receive documentation really. So I'm relunctant to connect it to the internet and have something mess up. Another thing thats raising my concerns after running the test you linked on my own computer is my new harddrive. I always feel for some reason that it's 'defective.' It's kind of loud, and the data transfer didn't seem fast. After running the test my main harddrive with windows (a 160 gig SATA hitachi) had the following transfer rates for files based on drives. Uncached speed 38 MB/s 46 MB/s 25 MB/s Where as my Samsung (the new one, 500 gb SATA) had these speeds. 11 MB/s 11 MB/s 12 MB/s Any ideas?

The harddrives an IBM DTTA-351350 I can give you the exact motherboard part number also. AV8 VIA K8T800 The new problem I'm having is it literally takes 15 minutes to start windows XP. I understand it's an old harddrive, the only boot time was 3 minutes on a computer with lesser specs. On the Verifying DMI Pool Data it hangs for about 7 minutes, then there's a loading bar (which was also on the last computer) which too takes 7 minutes. This computer technically has better specs, therefore is there any reason it takes so long to boot

Spark came from the power supply to the 4-pin connection to the harddrive, it was because I connected it while the computer was still on. As for the computer now, it is giving me one of the longest boots I've ever experienced. In the old computer it was in it took a max of 3-4 minutes to completely boot up XP. This one took about 2 minutes to get past the Verifying DMI Pool Data, then another 5 to get past this weird loading screen (took about 2-3 seconds on the old computer.) now it's loading XP. to answer "What cpu is in there? Is this a new MB ? If not have you reset the bios?" It's an AMD Athlon 3500+ I think. The motherboard is the same motherboard the processor ran on in December. I upgraded my main PC in December, took the old parts and boxed them away. Lately I bought a new powersupply, so then I had an extra sitting 'round. All I needed was a harddrive and I had a fully working computer for free basically. It's not the best, but it's still a darn good XP computer. All I need to do is upgrade ram and it's very excellent. Video card is a Radeon 9600XT.

Thanks for the welcome! Yeah I know the HDD is bad, I'm going to buy a nice SATA once I can get everything running. I'm not sure exactly what just happened, me being an idiot plugged the power cable back into the harddrive (had to plug the cdr drive in, and in order to do that I had to unplug the harddrive cables). Anyways, when I went to plug the harddrives power back in I forgot the power supply was still plugged in and I saw the largest spark ever. Scared my pants off. After that the motherboard starts playing the "oh no you just messed up badly" siren, which freaked me out even more. I was waiting for me to either die or the house to burn to the foundation. Anyways, after that the harddrive booted up to the screen I saw in the past. Put the XP disc in, formatted it, installed windows, rebooted, and it's hanging on the Verifying DMI pool, which is, like you said, probably because of the ancient harddrive. Lets see if this spark helped me in the long run.

Well, here's what's going on. I upgraded my computer, took my old parts out, threw them in a case, and had everything I needed except a power supply and a harddrive. Took an old IDE out of my old computer, which was running at the time, threw that harddrive into the new build. First time I booted it up it gave me the typical windows screen I got, then it gave me a blue screen. Bios recognized it, set jumpers as master, etc., After the first few times (I did change bios settings around though) of getting the original screen then freeze, I decided to go back into bios reset to "fail-safe defaults." My motherboard is a VIA K8T800, harddrive is a 13.5 GB IDE from a compaq. The computer freezes on verifying DMI Datapool, heres the screen I get. http://i30.tinypic.com/f9qlqc.jpg I also tried a new SATA I had just bought, but that wasn't even recognized at all, I think it's because the MOBO supports 1.5 SATA but not 3.0. I also booted an XP disc from cdrom but it never brought me to the format screen, and I also tried a Ubuntu live cd, but it wouldnt even load ubuntu live (unless I just had to wait longer.) it'd always stick on a screen flashing _ _ _. It anyone can help I'd greatly appreciate it. I have all the harddrive cords connected properly I believe, though the jumper settings may be incorrect. The bios does recognize the harddrive as Master 1. http://i29.tinypic.com/20hxcug.jpg I am aware there is no power running to it in the picture, I had to unplug it to try and get a picture of the pin settings, which ended up not working anyways. According to the image on the harddrive the placement of the jumpers IS master 1. Thanks kels