I've just bought some parts to upgrade/rebuild my PC:

o GA-K8NF-9 motherboard
o AMD 64 3000+
o 2 x 512MB Kingston RAM
o G-Force 6000 PCX video card
o IBM hard disk configured as master plugged into IDE 0
o NEC DVD writer configured as master plugged into IDE 1

System configured to boot off CD-ROM and then hard disk. Hard disk is
formatted as NTFS from another system but not bootable.

The system boots, detects the CD-ROM and attempts to boot off it. I say
attempt because it starts to boot Windows XP installation, displays the
"Scanning system configuration" but then appears to hang. I'm not sure it is
hanging - just that CD access is incredibly slow.

If I unplug the hard disk and reboot, the CD works flawlessly - starts up
the Windows XP install program perfectly but of course, there's no hard disk
to install on.

It feels like some weird conflict between the two IDE devices but I've never
come across that before - they are on different channels. I've tried a
different DVD-ROM drive and a different IDE cable, same problem.

Any ideas?

Thanks, Rob.