When stuff like that happens to me, I have to call in the local expert. He and I agree that the probable cause is the HP software that I have on the pc.

Once we've established that bond of hatred of HP software, he fixes the system.

TD. I reckon that as you changed so much hardware, windoze is treating it like a new machine. That would normally mean that it needs activating. Have a look in System Tools - it will say there if so (or look in the bottom right-hand corner for a pair of gold keys).

Know the feeling well Tony. :(

Have a read of this and see if it helps: How to Set Up Dual Boot After You Install Windows

Worth a look, I suppose. LINK to fix boot.ini snags.

TD

Do both drives have XP installed?

Yes both Hard disks have windows XP and all the necessary drivers on them,the machine will boot from either and run quite happily.
:)

So, are you saying you have both drives in the same machine and you have a choice to dual boot??? Can't say I'd have 2 copies of the same OS on the same machine. Unless of course it was a Virtual OS, of course.

Any way, to go back to the start:

You now have your HD cam working.
You can now access the MS website.
You can access both drives.
Windows is activated.

Can you confirm that you no longer have a problem? :)

I still have the problem with the SATA disk re it wont let me access microsoft websites,when I say I can boot from either disk I mean I unplug the Sata disk and plug in the ide disk it boots fine likewise if I reverse the process.
The sata disk works just fine I can access every other website in the world,everything runs hunky dory on it I just cant access microsoft website,like wise with this ide disk I created yesterday it works fine plus I can access microsoft websites,
Tiz academic anyway have made up my mind to invest in windows 7,be next month though, got me water rates to pay this month,bit puzzled as to whether to go for the 64 bit version or the cheerfull 32 bit one though being that the new beast I built has four CPUs.
:)

Hi Tony, like me you go for top end stuff! just make sure all the progs you intend to use in the next few years (and are using currently) will work under W7 64 bit - obviously peeps are catching up quick, but there will be some gaps...:8

If you can Mr D goes for the W 7 pro version that way any old legacy programs can be run under XP in a virtual M/C

A further interesting development,dug out another spare IDE Hard Disk from the junk box formatted, loaded windows, kit drivers ect,configured it as slave bunged it in machine with Sata disk as master,booted to bios setup,no sign of this new IDE slave in the boot device selection page,rebooted and it is sitting there happy as a pig in clarts in the My Computer Page? I can access it even copy stuff betwixt the two hard disks,is this normal?this is the first machine I have built using Sata disks,nothing urgent about this,one is just pottering about out of curiosity.
:)

Ah, now you are entering BOAC-land.

In a command window, what happens when you ping microsoft.com or tracert microsoft.com?

Surely you had to reactivate Windows after that scale of change ?