New HDD troubles

[Geomyster]

Suse 10.1 was going wearing out so I decided to start fresh with a new hard drive, and install XP and Suse 10.3. I got my HDD and plugged it in, then my motherboard wouldn't even boot past the very first screen, I can't even get into setup mode, it just keeps restarting before going into POST.
I plugged back in my old HDD and it boots up just fine. Did I recieve a faulty HDD, or is the larger capacity not compatible with my motheboard?

Motherboard: Asus K8N-E deluxe w/ AMD 64 3000+ (socket 754)
HDD: Western Digital WD7500AAKS 750GB SATA 7200 RPM 16MB Cache
Old HDD: Seagate Barracuda 160GB, SATA

Also, while I'm at it:
How would somebody recomend I partition my HDD if I want both XP & Linux, and I need to be able to share files between the two OS?

[wowbag1]

What does your BIOS say as to the drive and has the 750GB HDD nothing on it?
Does POST finnish OK inc. memory check?

[Geomyster]

The BIOS does not get to the part where it talks about SATA, it reboots before then. I cannot see what the BIOS says about the drive in setup (referring to BIOS setup), because it will not go into setup with the HDD plugged in.
The 750GB drive has nothing on it, fresh from the factory.

[wowbag1]

As a test try adding your new drive to your computer as a scondary drive and then booting with your old drive as per normal and see what happens - what info you can glean. If it works you can always install to that and or copy an install image and remove you old drive etc.

[Geomyster]

I tried hooking it up to SATA2, but it still doesn't work. BIOS still gets only to the first screen (memcheck OK) but hangs for a few secs, then reboots. Still can't get into BIOS setup.

[gogalthorp]

It might be a bad drive. (does happen)

Just changing the controller won't help put the old drive back in as primary and put the new drive as secondary so you can scan it to see if it actually works.

[Geomyster]

There isn't a way to set SATA to primary and secondary is there?
I can't scan the new one, if it is plugged in to either SATA1 or SATA2 (with or without the old drive plugged into the other port) the machine will not boot past the memcheck, and I can't go into BIOS setup to look around.

[gogalthorp]

Maybe you loosened a memory chip. Be sure that they are seated properly.

If you put things back as they originally were, will it boot?

[Geomyster]

Mem chip not loose, if I plug in the old SATA HDD it will boot to OS just fine.
Also, it gets past the memcheck OK, but reboots after that, as it is gonna go into the SATA loading part.

[scrarfussi]

Could it be your motherboard does not support drives that big why don't you take it back get another one and try it out . If you get the same error then you would know that its your motherboard or try the drive on someone else's pc see if it works