XP Problems

I am trying to start from scratch on an old computer running XP Prof. I tried to reboot and reinstall XP to wipe out the hard drive. That did not work because although during the boot process, the cd-rom light would come on like it was reading the disk, nothing happened. I went to MY COMPUTER and opened up the d: drive and tried to install XP that way and I got an error message that my current XP Prof is more current than the cd version. What more can I do? Is there a way to wipe the hard drive clean of XP and start over that way?

 

Why are we starting from scatch?What are the specs on this computer?Try going into run and type sfc/ scannow This will make sure all the files are intact it may prompt for your win xp cd.This may fix your problem.
Is Bios set to Boot from Cd First?
Hit F2 on boot when the computer manufacture splash screen comes up and change boot seqence to boot on cd rom first.save and exit.reboot

 

The BIOS is set to boot from CD first the removable drives second followed by hard drive then network. Do I type c:sfc/ scannow ? or another way without the c:?

 

Boot windows normally if you can. go to start run then type sfc /scannow.This is a windows system file checker
Scans and verifies the versions of all protected system files after you restart your computer.

 

ok its running, looks like its going to take awhile. What kind of results should i get?

 

Why are we starting from scatch?What are the specs on this computer?

 

there were problems with the computer before whre it would not stay up (running) for more than 15 minutes at a time. I dumped a bunch of files to where I have 4+ GB of memory available. Where it used to just have 300 MB. I want to use it as a 2nd computer and have it networked to my new computer so that the kids have something to use. I dont know why it used to crash but after trying like six anti virus programs and three spyware softaware I was able to clean a bunch of stuff off the computer where the kids were kids d/l ing everything in sight w/o thinking. I did not want to network the computer if it is still infected and having problems.

 

So it did not see the cd at all during boot with the win cd in the cd rom?It should say boot from cd press any key.Did you see this?If not you could have a bad harddrive(but don't rush on changing that yet).Try changing the memory with working good memory at least 256 for winxp and try to load windows.I would try the windows repair fuction first.If you can get the cd to boot.
You may end up doing a clean install then you will have to delete the partion and create a new one NTFS and install windows xp.But first you have to see the cd on boot.let me know

 

It did not say boot from cd press any key but the boot order does say cd/dvd drive first. I do have 256 mb. Do I need to go out and buy new ram first b4 hard drive? When i restarted after the sys file checker the cd rom light came on for like 10 secs then it went out and nothing occurred

 

I'm sure it is not this simple, but if you have more than one CD/DVD drive, have you tried it with the CD in the other drive?

Also, remember some boot menus have enable/disable options, along with boot sequence settings.

Best of luck!

 

I would not buy anything at this time.You may have to upgrade your bios.

 

can you upgrade online? its Phoenixbios i think

 

what are the primary and secondary master and slave for?