Ok so I installed windows and as some of you probably know I probably had a corrupt instillation so I was advised to start from scratch. so anyway, I fired up Partition Magic 8.0 and formatted all partitions and also changed them all to NFTS, PM runs before startup, so after doing that I just restarted my computer and everything was formatted no problems, I then stuck my Win XP Dell disk image (Ok so it was from another computer but I cant justify a new copy of XP just for one install) major problem! It says invalid system disk, please instert disk and press any key, I tried pressing anykey (the disk was already in) but nothing happened! I tried restarting and the same thing happened, I then tried inserting my win 98 disk in and the same thing happened! So what the hell am I supposed to do? Is there a simple fix?Changing something in BIOS or something?

If not I have some more information. I have some win98 boot disks, so I stuck one of them in, that seemed to work and it asked me if I wanted cd rom support or no cd rom support, I have tried both. It tells you all this stuff about your computer and goes through this approx. 2minute process saying please wait while ..... Then you get to this screen where it just says A:\> Now I thought this would be my chance and so stuck my winxp disk in and typed F:\boot, that didnt work so I tried F:\Setup, F:\Run and a few other things that sprung to mind, none of them worked. So what do I do?

Thanks for any help

Ross

You need to change the boot sequence in BIOS. Since failing to boot from a non-bootable CD can take about a minute, it is normaly only set to boot from CD when needed.

As for the win98 boot floppy, forget it. It should have put your CDROM somewhere, possibly under another letter. The winXP setup program is, IIRC, under the i386 folder, you should be able to use the dir command to find it. but it dosent matter, because M$ in their infinite wisdom made the installer a - get this - Windows Executable. Yes, you heard right, a windows installer that can only be run under windows. The winXP boot CD can provide that, the winXP boot floppies (a set of 6) can provide that, but your win98 boot floppies cannot. I can dig out the link to the winXP boot floppies if you cant get the CD working, let me know.

Ok, so how do I change the boot sequence? God sake, someone should sue! That is so stupid!

Took a look around in my BIOS and couldnt find anything to change the boot sequence.

Ok found it, and changed it, cheers man, it worked! So after I have installed xp do I just switch it back aye?

I wouldn't switch it back. Set it to Floppy, CD Rom, Hard Drive by default in every comp I get myself. It should be that way from the beginnig under my opinion.

A Dell image disk on a non-Dell PC? That may be the majority of problems right there. XP may just be loading drivers for hardware that isn't there.

<font color=skyblue>That is what I have heard of happening.</font>

Is this not exactly what we discussed the last time this Dell Win/XP cd came up.

well I havent had a chance to go on the net yet but we'l see what happens. Also there is a DELL folder created. What should I do? Is there a work around for this, and will it affect the way my computer runs?