Alrighty, we got us an issue. Again.
Me dood's machine is getting reformatted. All is well, we put in el disc, chose his SATA drive out the two [an IDE Samsung 160Gb and a SATA Seagate 80Gb] in the comp.
The reformat went well, no problems.
The issue is when we tried to get into the Windows installation itself, because the POST menu would show, then we got cursed with a blinking underscore for all eternity.
Now, assumptioning the Windows installation didn't need any files from the CD (because the hard drive receives files after the reformat, which are probably used to install the XP OS), I decided to put the SATA drive as the first booting device. I even unplugged the PATA drive for safety.
The underscore continues to plague. >_<
We even did the reverse, unplugging the SATA, and reformatting the PATA drive. No result. Assumptioning there's some BIOS configuration I should go by, or some jumper issue, or somethin. Arg.
The machine in question is a HP pavilion a620n, the only changed components being a SMARTPOWER 400-watter from Antec and an nVidia 5700 LE video card. Kingston RAM added to the original 512 stick, making a Gig total.
Thank ye peeps in advance.