windows/hdd not booting up properly

[lumis]

i was helping a friend do a fresh install of windows xp, he just purchased a new 160gb hdd.

the installation went fine, as did the updates & software installation. the issue i've encountered is that windows wont boot up unless there is a boot cd in the drive. such as the windows xp installation cd, or a nortons anti-virus cd. a disc that will give you the option of booting from the cd-rom or the harddrive. when a disc is not present it says "no bootable device found"i re-wrote the master boot record (there is a recovery console option in the windows xp installation), set the first boot device as the hard drive in the bios, & removed all drives except the harddrive.. the drive is set as the primary master. i'm a bit baffled as to what could be causing this. the motherboard is relatively new, it has a 2+ghz cpu. so i'm sure the motherboard is capable of handling drives larger than 137gb. windows xp see's the drives correct size..

any idea's?

[bazooka]

In the bios, did you select hard drive 0?

That is what it should be.

[lumis]

it didnt give me an option to select which hard drive, it just gives the option for hdd, cd-rom & floppy. hdd is #1.

and the harddrive is detected as the primary master.

[lumis]

??bump

[bazooka]

Check in your bios again. You should have several other booting choices.

It should be hard drive 0.

[gmatov]

Go through setup again.

When you get to boot options, through whatever route, as all boards are not created equally, look at your options.

You may have to look at each a couple times to get the gist.

You may have to select the option, then hit a key to put the device higher or lower on the totem pole, + or - keys, or up, down arrow keys, or page up, page down, as was big in AT times.

Should be Floppy, HD 0 or 1, depending on BIOS, then CD, or OPTICAL.

Cheers,

George