Bought new hdd 2 months ago and just decided today to install xp pro on it.
It is a maxtor/7200rpm/40gig/udma
Attempted to boot from 98 floppy...took 3x b4 it started up.
boot sequence is cd, floppy, then hdd
Bios reads new hdd fine
used 98 floppy to fdisk & create partitions 10G/30G, set 10G as active...rebooted, then formatted both drives
So far so good..removed floppy, inserted xp cd and rebooted..install going ok but monitor flicking on and off but continues to install. when it rebooted again got non system disk error ..remove disk and strike any key when ready...since there was no disks in drives I hit key and booted ok. installed driver for modem (only thing that showed up in device manager...unknown device, that went ok. Used the wizzard to do the internet connection then went to windows update...started to install sp1 and it cancelled after checking inventory and beginning to install..(the sp1 installer dl fine) Tried 4x with same results. Even shutt off xp firewall. Also everything is soooo sloooow. Checking anything on hdd takes 5 min at least to bring up whatever file i want to look at. It would freeze up at that point and Can't restart without using power switch. I notice strange noise comming from hdd sounds like screech click screech click not really loud but it is there. I havn't loaded any other software besides the modem driver. I dont have virus checker in bios.
Have the drive as master. Using same puter i'm on now with everything working fine with current hdd. just switched back to old hdd to try search for info since i can't do anything with new hdd.
After trying several times to get updates and fail i got BSOD with this error;
there was a problem detected and windows shut down to prevent damage to your computer
kernel_data_inpage_error
stop-0x0000007A (0xe13d8408, 0xc000000e, 0xbf8f2bec, 0x06469860
win32k.sys-addreg bf8f2bec base at bf800000,
date stamp 3b7d8698
begining physical dump of memory
that was when i heard the noises from hdd the most, then i shut it off.
i know I could update bios but it works fine with current winxp install on old hdd so I figure it should work fine with this hdd. I was also able to see C:/ and D:/ in new xp install. Also should mentiion when i installed xp it did give option to format ntfs which i did.
Sorry for the long post but....
Thanks for any help or info other than microsofts knowledge base...i looked there...not exactly what im looking for.

It does sound like a HD problem, not BIOS (maybe a bad block). If you have the cd that came with the drive, use it to make a Powermax diagnostic floppy (the cd will tell you how). If not, go to www.maxtor.com and download Powermax. Then boot from the floppy and check the HD. If you get an error, write down the code, as you will need it to RMA the drive. There is a test on the floppy that can also repair bad blocks. Try that, too. You may be able to save the drive. If not, Maxtor is great about RMAs, and you can do it all online. HTH

if your hdd is making noises (besides spin noises) then it is more than likely bad, do the diagnostic test on it and send it back, hope this helps

I never recieved any cd or any thing with hdd, not even new cable or owners manual, etc. Downloaded the powermax util that M. Secret suggested here is results so far...
test 1...passed..(hooked up right)
test 2 90sec basic...passed, 1 read scan of drive is recommended. there was no congrats..all is well message...
test 3 advanced test...went thru the 90sec test again then to smart self test...failed with error code # 3JXS57
didn't proceed with any of the other tests till i find out what this result means...If anyone can guide me closer than reading 204 documents from maxtor...that would be great!..or will LL format fix it? thanks for the help.

If you got a fail code, you're going to need to call maxtor to RMA the drive. The only other thing you can try is doing a low level format of the drive and then retesting it to see if that got rid of the problem. Maxtor tech support is really good and they will be able to tell you what that error means w/o having to go through 10million tech documents

Just to let you guys know...I took the hdd back to the buisness that sold it to me and he took it back...I opted for a seagate he had on hand....will see how that goes...thanks for the help guys...if this doesn't turn out right then i'll be back with new post...lol