Newbie question about installing WinXP Pro

[Meteor_of_War]

How exactly do you install once you've formatted your hard drive (sorry i dont have a manual). My brother and i have just built a PC and he wants to install XP but we have always just installed it over Windows 98. Can someone give me a quick step by step or link to some good instructions?

Thanks

 

[nofriends]

Enter the bios and set it so that the CDROM is the 1st boot device. Now simply put the XP disc in the drive and restart. Be sure to disable the CDROM as the 1st boot device after you are done, or you might get some boot disk failure warnings.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

Thanks for the reply, i'll give it a go.

 

[Meteor_of_War]

Just wanted to reply to say it worked and all is well. =)

Funny how the problems i always have are so obvious and simple.

 

[SubKamran]

That's what's great about today's BIOSs. No worrying about huge 250GB drives, and you can install OSs using the BIOSs own generic CD-ROM driver.

Ah, the old days. HD Disk (to format) > MS-DOS > Then finally install Win 98

 

[Meteor_of_War]

Originally posted by SubKamran
Ah, the old days. HD Disk (to format) > MS-DOS > Then finally install Win 98

Well that's actually how i intended to install WinXP, but i couldnt figure out how to do it without installing '98 first.

 

[Dr. Freeman]

Originally posted by SubKamran
That's what's great about today's BIOSs. No worrying about huge 250GB drives, and you can install OSs using the BIOSs own generic CD-ROM driver.

Ah, the old days. HD Disk (to format) > MS-DOS > Then finally install Win 98

u know its funny that i was fretting over formatting a brand new hard drive and installing Win XP Pro on it.. yup.. it was my nitemares from the DOS days where u needed a driver for EVERYTHING before u formatted, otherwise u would be shooting urself in the foot..

but man!
after this installation, i have to admit, it was the easiest installation of hard drive/ O/S that i ever done

 

[Typhon]

couple things:

1. I always leave my cdrom as the first boot device, it will only boot if there's a bootable cd in the drive (rare). and even if there is most BIOS will give you the "hit any key to boot from cd . . . . " time-out.

2. you don't have to format the HD before running the install, one of the first things the xp installer does is let you manage your partitions (ie delete/format, etc)