New System Build

Case: Antec 900 w/associated cooling fans
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P35-DS3R Version 2.0 Bios F9
PSU: BFG 850w
CPU: Intel Quad Core Q6700
Cooling: Arctic Freezer 7 Pro
HD: Seagate SATA 750 GB
(SATA cable hooked up in SATAII0)
DVD: Megastor DVD-RW Triple Mode Burner
(IDE cable and Drive setup as Master)
Floppy: Mitsumi 7-1 Media card reader with 1.44Mb Floppy
(Floppy cable and USB cable)
RAM: 4x2 GB Kingston DDR2 800
Graphics: Ati Radeon X1900XT

This is my second computer I build, first no problem. But this one I am having problems.

I am having trouble trying to get it to load software off either the dvd-rw or floppy drives.
System bios recognizes that I have a HD, DVD-RW and floppy installed. I set it up to boot up from the cdrom drive first, HD and floppy.

I rebooted the computer and inserted WIN XP SP2 disk in drive, computer gets up to “verifying DMI pool” bios screen, I see the dvd drive activity light, but the computer fails to read this data.

I switched to floppy boot first, went to MS website and made six install disks, rebooted and inserted first floppy into drive. Same problem. It fails to read the data.

So, I thought of flashing the bios and updating it, I went to Gigabytes website and downloaded the bios (F11) to a disk. But I still had the same problem.

Can only one help with this problem. What settings in the bios setup do I need to change in order to load WIN XP into this computer and run it with one SATA HD only.

Before you F10 out of bios Windows Install Disk should be in the disk drive.
Put Windows Disk in the Disk Drive before you exit Bios.
When you F10 out a pop-up reads,(are you sure you want to exit, select yes)you should automatically boot into 1st boot device. In the lower left of your screen @ dos prompt says "press enter/any key to boot from cd? Do that to boot from CD.
Do you have both power and sata cable hooked up to your HD?

First off. Only put 1 stick of ram in!
XP will never install with 8 GB of ram in it..heck it won't install with 4 GB of ram!
After the os is installed and cofigured/updated then you can shut down and put the rest of your ram in...you are installing 64bit xpright?
hope this helps.

^ Good advice. If that doesn't work, you might want to download Ultimate Boot CD and run memtest86+. You will need to burn the ISO to CD with ISO Recorder v 2 or other ISO burning software.

^ Agreed. Also up the RAM voltage.

Removed all RAM except for 1 stick.

Set bios to boot from CD ROM first. Inserted CD and rebooted computer. No luck

Then set bios to boot from floppy drive first, inserted MS setup disk 1 and rebooted computer. No luck still.

Computer still gets to verifying DMI pool. Then is boot from CD/DVD, even if I set it to boot from floppy first.

Is there something wrong with the bios integrated peripherals page. I have it set as follows:
SATA Raid AHCI mode "Disabled"
SATA Port0-3 Native mode "Disabled"
USB Keyboard support "Enabled"
USB Mouse support "Enabled"
Onboard Sata/IDE Device "Enabled"
Onboard Sata/Ide Control Mode "IDE"

I want run my computer with one sata harddrive, ide dvd-rw drive and combo media reader/floppy drive.

All your settings should be to auto or default. Dont mess with bios until windows is installed. What's SATA port0-3 native mode? could this have anything to do with it?
If all else fails and you got it from retailer than exchange mobo for new one and try again.

Use 1 hd and 1g or ram and no other extras to load windows and update then add the rest later.

After you make any hardware change ie.. changing ram sticks, reset the cmos. If you didnt reset comos with 1g ram it would be a good idea.

Just a guess, but unplug floppy-media card reader as this is a complex install on the usb part, and try again

I've read in some forums that alot of ppl are having hdd/od problems with older bios.
The latest bios that semms to fix their issus is F11..
Since you have dual bios you could try update bios from jump drive/floppy...
Also which satas are you plugged into? yeloows or purples.
If yellows (port0-3) alot of ppl are setting 'native' to enabled.
Hope this helps!

Funny I installed XP on my HDD with my Q6600 and P35-DS3R with all 4GB of ram installed...

In fact I've built 2 computers with all 4 gigs installed. XP on one, Vista on the other...

I installed vista yesterday with 4 gigs in the mobo no problem.

RMA your board, the southbridge is fried.

Agreed with both... If nothing else works than your board is fried. I would however try flashing it and using different SATA ports and enable everything in bios.
I had all 4gigs installed when I loaded Vista too.