Problem Installing Windows on WD SATA disk

[fasterbybike]

I'm replacing the HDD on my X61 and have installed a new WD 320GB SATA disk.

Because the X61 does not have a CD ROM I created a bootable USB thumb drive using the procedure at http://www.liliputing.com/2008/04/insta ... e-usb.html

The trouble is I cannot get the laptop to reboot from the HDD after Windows has installed. It will reboot if I press F12 and select the USB drive but trying to boot from the HDD gives an error
"a disk read error occurred" followed by "Press Ctrl Alt Del to restart"

I have run DISKPART and made the partition with Windows active.

The BOOT.INI file contains the following information
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

I have set the SATA mode to "compatability" in the BIOS (it blue screens on the other setting).

Looking forward to hints as to how I can get this to boot normally

[fasterbybike]

A pox on microsoft

Turns out that you get problems if you create a partition smaller than the disk size when installing this way. Deleting the partition and reinstalling with a 320GB partition "fixed" the problem.

I'll use a partition tool to shrink the bootable partition later

[killer]

A pox on microsoft