need help with reinstalling xp

[johncollins]

hi everyone, i am a newbie so forgive me if i make a mistake.

my problem is i was trying to reinstall xp on my sons pc. (it is old and was slow). i changed boot order in bios to cd rom, i put in xp home cd, formatted the partition (ntfs) (fast at first but then slow format) the disk then installed the windows files, when it reboots to load the gui i get nothing but a flashing cursor in top left of screen and after a few minutes that dissapers as well leaving me with a blank screen,

plus i only got his tower so having to disconnect my screen and power lead from this pc and connect to his (a major pain)

 

pakard bell ixtreme 9607

40gb h/d

512mb ram

dont know m/b model yet but can find out

 

thanks john

[Guest Wolfeymole]

Hi John

 

Welcome to FPCH

 

I'm a little confused as to what you did with regard to this statement.

 

formatted the partition (ntfs) (fast at first but then slow format)

 

Can you explain please.

[johncollins]

thanks wolfemole, i sorted it, i tried fast formatting first, but that didnt work so later tried slow formatting (someone advised me that slow formatting is better) eventually after sorting above problem, pc would only boot in safe mode, i fixed this but dont really know how! i tried chkdsk /p, /r , i tried fix mbr, tried fix boot, opened cover and removed different components (ram, dvd etc) to see if was a hardware problem. looked in msconfig at boot ini to see if start in safe mode ticked (it wasnt). downloaded new display driver etc. it just booted up!!! dont know what i done!!

[Dalo Harkin]

When you installed the OS - you should have had the first boot device in the BIOS set to DVDROM - make sure that you change it back to HDD when the OS is installed