Brand new HDD not working?

[CoRPS]

Alright guys, here's the deal. About 2 months ago my hard drive from Maxtor quit working, o I called them up and got myself a new one. (it was still under warranty). So, while they were shipping it, I pulled out an old 20GB HDD from an old PC, formatted it, and used it.
The new HDD came in, and me bieng as lazy as I am I just let it sit, figured next time I have to format, I'll just use that one. So... Guess what. It's time to format. I put the HDD in, and try to install windows. Everything goes by fine, formats, copies the files. reboots.
On reboot, I get "Press any key to boot from CD". If I press something, it restarts the whole format process again, if I press nothing, it says "Error loading operating system".

Any suggestions? Comments? Apparently Maxtor shipped me a dead disk, and since my warranty is up, there is nothing I can do about it, or is there? Any help would be appreciated.

[M11]

First off, note that you only ever need to press the key to boot off CD once. Now there is nothing wrong with the HD itself, as the Windows Setup was able to format and copy files to it. Head into your BIOS, and make sure that you are set to boot first from CDROM, and then from your Hard Drive, called "Hard Drive", "HD", "HDD0", or something else similar in the BIOS setup menu.

[CoRPS]

Ahh, I have my CD Set 1st, let me go change it and see.

[CoRPS]

Alright, I set HDD-0 to the first boot device, and it still said "Error Loading operating System".

[M11]

You can rule out/confirm some hardware problems by running Maxtor's diagnostic utility.
http://maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/?epi_menuItemID=3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068&epi_menuID=976d37cd478c5826433f226075b46068&epi_baseMenuID=976d37cd478c5826433f226075b46068&channelpath=/en_us/Support/Software%20Downloads/ATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=22

[CoRPS]

It looks to me as if you need to have an OS to test it, am I wrong?

[M11]

It looks to me as if you need to have an OS to test it, am I wrong?
Yes. Couldn't you use the machine that you're posting from now and install the HD in question as a slave? If there is any hardware problem present, it is good to identify it before you have windows setup and running on that HD.

[CoRPS]

I wish I could, my ATA Cable only supports 1 device.

[zeplar]

You just need the OS to extract the files to a floppy.

Also, you didn't happen to get a larger hard drive as a replacement by any chance? That message can also come up when the BIOS doesn't support the full capacity of your hard drive. Like if you went from 120GB to 160GB.

Oh, and try a Windows 98 fdisk or other utility to wipe the drive clean. Dunno why that would work better than the Windows XP setup program, but it has a couple of times for me.