No I am not going to get a new HDD, as it technically work, just not in the PC its supposed to if in fact it is the HDD, we will see how long my hubby can use it in the IBM, and I will use the dell as my lab machine. If in fact it is my mobo why does 98 load fine.
I also did make sure everything was tight etc etc. But this is not the first tiem thsi PC has done crazy stuff, one day it crashed while I was using it, I restarted and it would not start, so i called the place I got it from as it was still under warrenty through them and we arranged to bring it in to reformat, so the day before I decided to plug it in to get my hubbies files off it, and I was going to go into safe mode, and it started up fine, and worked fine up until know. And this happened about 6 months after we replaced the CDROM etc. I think maybe the Dell has just lost its life, as it really makes no sence to me why one HDD would work and the wont, everything is telling me its not the HDD nor the mobo. I even switch the HDD and CDROM ports and it worked with the 98 but not with the XP. Amd I have the CDROM in the IBM so its not the CDROM. I agree all the sypmtoms point to a failing HDD, but is working fine. I dont know I am stumped.

Oh and Larry I did switch the cables, I had a few extra ones with my lab machine and still nothing, but then I thought if the 98 works how could it be the cable.

Ok ribs i want to revisit an earlier thread, though I'm not too sure it will be effective,

Early on I asked about master/slave settings, then I kind of left that line of tought for some reason. To adjust master/slave settings you would need to move or remove a small jumper that is situated in an area of the physical drive somewhere between where the IDE cable plugs in and where the power connector plugs in. Normally on the top of the drive there is a little diagram that shows where to place the jumper to set the drive to Master, Slave or Cable select. Some drives really don't like being set to slave (I've run into this problem with a lot of older Fujitsu drives. Most times this can be rectified by simply removing the jumper altogether.

Essentially what I would like you to try if you're feeling so inclined to do is...

Check the settings on the CDROM (oh yes also sometimes there are indicators such as MAS, SLA, and CS, right above where the jumper sits.) and set the hard drive to the opposite setting. Alternatively you can take the trial and error approach since there are only a few possibilities. First try master and boot. Then try slave, then try no jumper and as a last resort, try cable select. We would also like to try these settings with your XP CD in the drive and the CMOS set to 1st boot from CD and 2nd boot from HDD0 (zero).

Ok I will try they are both CS, I am not feelign well today so I will try in a few days, being sick and trying to work on a pc may make me hurt it, lol. Thanks Ron

No prob, I'll keep an eye out for ya, I usually have my CDROM set to master...well, actually I have both my ooptical drives on one IDE cable and both my hard drives on the other, if that's an option you could simply set both to master and put them on seperate IDE controllers.

Take care, chicken soup for viruses and fresh garlic cloves for infections (that hurts but it's worth it. Honey for sore throats.

Um both my CDROM and HDD are on different IDE controllers.

And thanks for the sick suggestions, I would really like to lay down and go to sleep, but I have a 3 year old who is potty training woohoo. I am going to go make some tea with honey.