I am trying to reformat my PC and for some reason XP won't install! I have changed the bios so that all my boot devices are set to the CD-ROM. However when it says "Press any key to boot CD..." I try pressing but nothing happens, and then it just loads up Windows XP.

??!?!

Which 'any' key are you pressing? For some reason Return won't do it so it should say 'press any other key...'

I press space bar or something else.

Are you certain that your version of XP is bootable? There were 2 versions each of XP Home, Pro and Media Center: Upgrade (non-bootable; assumes you already have a qualifying OS installed and wish to upgrade to XP) and full install (bootable and installable on a freshly formatted hard drive). It sounds like you have the upgrade version.

If you have an OEM version of XP that is bootable, you may need to format the hard drive before you can install it because it is made to be installed on a disk with no operating sysyem installed.

If you don't have an old boot disk you can download the ultimate boot disk and burn a bootable CD from that. Once you have a blank hard drive your XP CD should work normally.

You can test this by unplugging your hard drive or maybe by setting the bios to none for hard drives.

edit: Even if your CD is sp2, the are 80 something updates that you will need to download once you install from the CD. It will hang up after 40 something and you will need to reboot and update again to get the rest of them.

I've had the same problem before. I used a Linux live-cd to remove the partition and then Windows installed.

Originally Posted by Neophyte

Are you certain that your version of XP is bootable? There were 2 versions each of XP Home, Pro and Media Center: Upgrade (non-bootable; assumes you already have a qualifying OS installed and wish to upgrade to XP) and full install (bootable and installable on a freshly formatted hard drive). It sounds like you have the upgrade version.

Yeah i'm sure that its bootable. I have XP Pro, and I tested it on a laptop and it boots on the laptop but not on my PC.

Originally Posted by colbyt

If you have an OEM version of XP that is bootable, you may need to format the hard drive before you can install it because it is made to be installed on a disk with no operating sysyem installed.

If you don't have an old boot disk you can download the ultimate boot disk and burn a bootable CD from that. Once you have a blank hard drive your XP CD should work normally.

You can test this by unplugging your hard drive or maybe by setting the bios to none for hard drives.

edit: Even if your CD is sp2, the are 80 something updates that you will need to download once you install from the CD. It will hang up after 40 something and you will need to reboot and update again to get the rest of them.

How would I be able to format the hard drive?

Originally Posted by joder

I've had the same problem before. I used a Linux live-cd to remove the partition and then Windows installed.

Where could I get a Linux live-cd?

Originally Posted by Jdinh04

Where could I get a Linux live-cd?

This is the one I used
http://www.morphix.org/

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

Here is the other. You boot to linux and then load dos from the menu on this one.

You need to know how to burn an iso image to cd. Nero does it as does most burning software.

Thank you, let me try these options out and let you know how it goes!

Yeah i'm sure that its bootable. I have XP Pro, and I tested it on a laptop and it boots on the laptop but not on my PC.

An OEM cd wouldnt stop you from loading the setup, if anything the setup would be interrupted after the install process, not before, as there has been no scanning or configuration for previous setups.

I would put my money on a bad cd, but since you already tried it on another computer, I would say there is a problem with your cd drive.

In any case, burn a program to a cd and see if you can format the drives, if you cant boot from that cd, then we know its your cd drive.

Nope the cd drive is working fine. But just to save me time i'll probably just toss out this hdd and get another formatted hdd and just use that. I'm planning on upgrading my system anyways so I don't think it'd be a big deal.

Before you throw away what may be a good hard drive, try something a bit outside the box.

Since your CD will boot off the laptop, it obviously means your laptop will read the CD. So use it to create Windows Setup Boot Disks (floppy disks):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994

Come on, dude...you gotta have 6 floppies kickin' around somewhere. Any geek worth his salt has that box of 'em that have been labeled/relabeled/threelabeled and abused.

Hahahaha I do have a floppy drive but don't have it installed on my PC. I figure out a way to get this **** thing reformatted.

fdisk is your friend.