win xp won't boot after power failure

Everytime I choose any selection, the xp screen displays...it thinks...and thinks...any then goes back to the error screen with "normal start up" and the timer ticks...The system will continue this cycle until I stop it.

I did try to use the cd, restore console, press r, and shortly after I am taken to a command line. I dont think anything is being retored.

I also tried to change the drive primaries and install windows on my second hard drive, but I am not given the option to select the drive.

Is my only option to get another hard drive and install windows on it?

I tried a repair install and it did not work.

what is the error? Does it restart? If so you may want to reinstall it completely. If it gives a blue screen, Then what does the blue scren say? if it gives the error driver_irql_not_less_or_equal, then yopur system is 100% going to fail again and as such toast.

I just tried to install windows xp home, on a new hard drive i picked up and I get the same blue screen as the other times i've tried to install...unknown disc
(there is no disc in this drive) this message is repeated four times in the box where you would normally pick the drive to install windows. I an totally lost now!

Let me be a little blunt here. The machine is a fairly advanced system with SATA drives which means you can't toss your XP SP2 CD in there and do the repair install.

With most (if not all) SATA systems you need to boot the XP SP2 CD (yes, you should have the XP SP2 CD, not XP) and then tap the F6 key at the right screen then offer the SATA DRIVER DISKETTE so it can find the hard disks.

Not a newbie machine.
Not a newbie repair.

Who did this to you?

Bob

Thanks for the info. I didn't know I needed to reload the SATA drivers. I know I did when I started the system the first time, but I didn't think I would have to reinstall them...Makes sense though...system not recognizing the drives...I'll try it.
The person at the service center (because I almost recheached my wits end)told me they would have to reinstall my os and I thought "at that price I could get another HD"
I may have better then average components, but i consider my tech knowledge average, newbie if you will.

But XP doesn't know how to use SATA drives without them. So the repair install is a fine idea but the steps are not as easy as we would want them to be.

In short...

Read about XP REPAIR INSTALL on google.com but also read about HOW TO INSTALL XP TO A SATA HARD DISK on google. What we need to do is to use knowledge from the second set of articles to get the REPAIR INSTALL rolling along.

Bob