Here is the Samsung diagnostic for the hard drive if needed:

SAMSUNG Hard Disk Drive - support - utilities

This is used as either a boot floppy or a boot CD ISO.


Here is that board:

ASUSTeK Computer Inc.

Here is the manual:

http://dlcdnet.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/...2_p5vd2-vm.pdf


My first observation is the CD drive needs to be set in the Boot Priority before the hard drive.

Hi Jephree,
I have had a look at the Samsung site, the utility warns it may wipe the hard drive, and it also appears seriously beyond my level of understanding.
I am thinking that, considering there is not much on the drive anyway, of a clean Windows install. That plus running the ASUS CD should install all the drivers needed so the computer will "see", or detect, the HDD. Is this a correct assumption?
Also from my recollection of reinstalling Windows on my own computer I made changes to the BIOS so the first boot device was the CDROM, which the subsequent installation appeared to over ride as part of the installation. I think the bit of the BIOS I can currently see will allow that.
This may well be the quickest and cleanest solution, unless there are diagnostics on the ASUS CD. This would also wipe both LAN connections, which presently seem kind of trivial.
What do you think?

The Samsung diagnostic is an automatic run once you create the floppy or CD.

Their warnings are just any company covering its ass so to speak.

If you do not suspect a hard drive failure than just forget this step.


An IDE drive needs no drivers for XP to install. That entire issue deals with SATA drives.


You do need to go into the BIOS and put the CD drive in front of the HDD.

In your post you posted:

Select a first boot device
> Removable
-Floppies
> Hard Disk
-1st Master
>CDROM
-2nd Slave, Lite On DVDRW LH-18A1P

You need to go into the BIOS Setup and move CDROM on top of or ahead of Hard Disk

Your list should read:

> Removable
-Floppies
>CDROM
-2nd Slave, Lite On DVDRW LH-18A1P
>Hard Disk
-1st Master


The XP install goes like this:

1) XP

2) Windows Updates

3) Drivers

If you need the LAN driver to get online in order to get Windows Update then do that.

You can also make a slipstreamed XP SP2 or 3 CD in order to bypass the Windows Update step.

nLite is the slipstreamer of choice:

nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation - Guide

Well it is a whole lot less scary after I read that, so thanks heaps.
Does the nLite save the updates to a CD so if re installation is required they are to hand?

The nLite process is shown in the guide I posted but basically you copy the XP CD to your hard drive and you download SP3 to your hard drive then nLite will "mix" them and allow you to burn a new ISO XP SP3 CD.

You can download SP3 here:

http://www.microsoft.com/DownLoads/d...displaylang=en

Nifty, thank you!

No problem. Let us know how it goes.

That may be a few days due to logistics, but I will certainly post news when there is some.

More time has passed, but little progress on this issue.
Today I attempted to reinstall Windows. The nlite disk it would not read, the regular MS disk it did read but setup was not able to "see" a HDD.
Not sure that I can do this, how can the computer "lose" it's HDD? I did attempt running the MB CD but got no response from that. If this was a simpler sort of machine I would assume a bad or loose connection, but could the computer somehow have dislodged the connection between HDD and MB? Seems unlikely to me.
One thing I did not try, because I did not think it a likely candidate is the Samsung diagnostic. Would that enable the computer to find its HDD?
Confused.

Nothing will happen unless the BIOS sees the hard drive.

Does the BIOS see the hard derive?