xp wont install

i am trying to load xp onto my mates computer, so i put the disk in, then i go thruigh the installation process of partitioning the drives and then i install the OS, when this is done it ses that the installation was a success, so all is apparently well, however, when the somp reboots the comp will either not allow me to continue with the installation by not allowing me choose 'boot from cd' because it just wont come up, or if it does it just brings me back to the installation page that i have just left. the disk has been wiped several times, and we have tried to install it several times.

this is becoming very irritating as we have no idea what it is that is causing this to happen, we also tried to use fdisk, that failed, we tried xp boot disk, it would not read the second disk no matter how many times we did it, we formated the drive again, that has failed, and now i am writting this.

also, sometimes 'invalid sytem disk' message comes up, but what happens most of the time, is when the comp reboots after formating the hard disk all that apears is a blinking cursor at the top left of the page.

any suggestions ideas...anything..anyone?

 

Could be that XP Setup or hard disk are damaged.

 

yeye, that is what i was afraid of, you see the computer is about 4 years old, and he had been using ME all that time. now he sais that the comp was prone to just random behaviour like rebooting at random intervals and shutting programms down, etc.
i dont think that it XP setip tho, because i used the same disk on my two comps last week to re install everything, and all is well, so i really dont know.

is there anyway that i can check if there is hardware damage?

 

What kind of HDD do you have.
Most manufactures offer free diagnostics utility, go to thier web and download.

 

Has your friend OC'd the computer at all? If yes, try going to the BIOS and set it back to Optimal settings and see if that works.