felixgambino

Thanks for the reply, I don't follow how your first suggestion will help; half installing XP on one computer and then beginning again on the laptop? Will I not just be in the same position? and may I ask what bsod is? I will however try your second suggestion of putting XP setup on a USB and booting from that - I'll write back with my progress. Thank you again.

Hi All After recently replacing the hard drive in the laptop I am booting up the laptop. It is connected to an external CD drive with the Windows Professional Disk inside. After initially getting the above error message I had a look to the internet. I follwed this site's advice: http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=c01613138 However at Step 5 on "Configure the boot order in the BIOS" ... I don't have the optical drive present in my options. I feel after several methods of fixing the error - this may be the way to correct it, however I need anyone's help who may be able to show me how to make the optical drive present so that I may boot the laptop from the Windows XP disk. Thank you in advance, please ask if you require any other information.