Windows XP loading problems

Hi,
I've recently built a new pc. I'm trying to load XP after updating the BIOS
on first power up.
It's was only loading for a few seconds when it said I should close down and
reload the OS. Now its just sitting there with no disk activity at all.
On the screen I have the following:
"PCI DEVICE LISTINGS" - several lines of data
"VERIFYING DMI POOL DATA"
It's at this point the loading process hangs with no further activity.
One thing I did notice in the "CMOS Set up utility" was that the "IDE
channel 0 slave" showed the Hitachi Deskstar HDD I've installed, I thought
that it would have showed up in the Master and not slave header.
Have I installed the SATA cable into the wrong Mobo connector??
Any other help you can give me??
Spec
Gigabyte GA-EP43-DSL
Intel E7400
Hitachi E7K1000 (Sata)
Lite-on DVD writer LH 20A1S (Sata)
2Mb RAM