I have quite a peculiar problem. I have a formatted hard drive and I am trying to boot it from the cd-rom to reinstall windows xp pro. I hit ''the any key'' :) and when it says hit any key to boot from disk and the it recognizes the keyboard so I know that is not the problem. It typically is supposed to wait like 5 seconds and ..... Like 5 of them. I hit enter or whatever and it stops on whenever I hit the key and it doesn't do anything. What do I do? I have reset the BIOS and CMOS. I have tried multiple CD-ROM drives. I have tried everything I know how to do and I can't figure out why it won't budge past that and starting loading windows setup files. Any ideas?
The reason why Windows install/setup is not continuing is it is trying to detect the hard drive.
You might have a faulty disk or the MBR (Master Boor Record) on the hard disk is corrupted or virus infected.
When you go into the BIOS configuration, does the BIOS detect the hard drive? If so this is a good sign. If not the hard disk is probably faulty and needs to be replaced.
Next boot up with a DOS floppy boot disk and the run fdisk /mbr
This will fix the MBR.
Next run fdisk again and delete all the partitions on the hard drive.
You do not need to create a new partition with this DOS disk, this will be done with the Windows XP install.
Reboot the computer and now install Windows XP. create a new partition and format it in NTFS (do not do a quick format).
It sounds like the disk you are trying to use is bad the boot sector on the disk is corrupt. It happens.
If you have access to a working computer with a cd burner i can Email you a windows xp pro OEM disk in zip or rar format you will have to extract it burn it
and you will need the 25 char. code from the WGA sticker to activate it.
my email is [email protected]
Hope this helps
please leave feedback
Does it show
boot from cdrom?
did you answer (Y)
then hit spacebar?
have the bios set to boot from cdrom/first boot device cd-rom?
If any of these settings are not applyed you will not restore xp on your computer
go into bios and conferm settings
first boot device if set as floppy or hard drive change to cdrom
on some systems you can hit the (f12) key to bring up a boot window and select the cdrom and boot from there then it will ask the normal questions
DELL OPTIPLEX GX-270 hard drive crashed and I had to buy new one but, can't find Windows XP Professional to put on hard drive. The computer boots but there is no software on hard drive.
Try hitting the enter key multiple times as soon as you selected boot to cd/dvd. if it still continue to try loading windows and not boot from disc, you need to replace your optical drive.
3,107 views
Usually answered in minutes!
Yeah, It is set up to boot from cd-rom first. It just kinda freezes up when i hit enter. it will sit there forever and not do anything. I have tried multiple disks as well.
Have you change the BIOS boot up device sequence with the CD as the first boot device?
×