Installing Windows...

[JFry]

I am trying to reformat my hard drive using the windows xp cd. What I do is go into bios, select my cd-rom as my primary boot device, and let windows setup take over from there. It starts up ok, loads some things off of the cd, but then it hangs on "Setup is starting windows". I have left it there for half an hour and it didn't move. Is something wrong with my bios? Could it be a hardware problem? I'd appreciate any suggestions.

 

[Asus]

Clean the CD?
Try a different drive?

 

[Death.Trap]

I have an HP, the first time I did a reformat I had to leave the "windows loading" screen on all night and windows was up when I woke up in the monring. second time I reformatted it took about 20 seconds.

 

[JFry]

The cd looks spotless to me and unfortunately I only have 1 cd drive. I will leave it on while I go to work and hopefully good things will occur. Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[JFry]

Well it seems the problem was that I had updated setup from windows and I believe I only had a partial update. However now I am having trouble formatting. I try to delete the partition I have now and it says it can't because the updated setup files are on the partition. So I thought I'd just create a new partition and go back later to delete the current one, but it won't let me do that either (sorry can't remember the error message; I think it is similar).

I am wondering if anyone knows where windows places these updates for setup? Or perhaps there is an easier solution I am overlooking? I want to delete these files but I know windows won't give them up without a fight!

 

[DiSTuRbEd]

I have an HP, the first time I did a reformat I had to leave the "windows loading" screen on all night and windows was up when I woke up in the monring. second time I reformatted it took about 20 seconds.

Prebuilts=easy to format, custom pc's are a little more pain in the arse. :hmph: