press any key to boot from cd.....error loading operating system help!!!!!!!!

the local school just bought new pc and were selling the old ones. i bought one. it was an aopen custom pc wih an amd athlon xp2400. they wiped the hd clean. when i went to install xp i got to th format screen. i clicked on the hd and it started. it was at about 98% and i turned away. next thing i know the pc was off. i let it sit a while and turned it back on. it started to load up and then i got the error press any key to boot from cd.....error loading operating system. i changed the bios to boot from hd. i get the error loading operating system again. is my copy of xp bad. ive got another but it wont load. if i have to format i will. i just dont know how. someone tell me what i need to do please. thanx in advance

 

I would format the hard drive first. It's best to do it with a bootcd. Gparted is a free bootcd that can format and partition your drive. This way you will start with a clean drive. Make sure you use the NTFS format, it is more reliable when using xp.

Next reload windows xp. If you still have problems it might be a bad or scatched cd. You can try using a different cd/dvd rom some can read a bad cd better. Another thing, you can actually fix your xp cd. It's call slipstreaming, I had my original xp sp1 cd that was no longer working, I slipstream it and turned it into an xp sp2 cd, it worked great after that.

I have the same problems you encounter before and was always able to fix it.

 

i just dl gparted 0.4.5. do i burn the rar as an iso?

 

you need a ISO burning program (powerISO, nero, magicISO) whatever you decide to choose pop a blank CD into your CD drive and using a ISO program burn the image onto the blank disk you inserted into the Cd drive.

from there change your bios to boot from CD first. Once the HD is partitioned or clean try the re-installion of windows. if it fails it may be a disk error on the windows Cd that your using. plz keep me informed on your status! i hope i was helpful to you situation

 

ok i tried to burn the files using img burn. first i tried to burn the file before extracting it and it wouldnt let me burn it. i dl it from sound forge and i know their dl are of good quality. it was a tar file. next i extracted with winrar and created an iso to burn. i burned it at 2.4x like i do with all isos and it wouldnt boot on the pc. i already changed it to boot from cd first. just the error loading operating system. should i dl from somewhere else or use another program. i didnt see any exe file in the dl. thanx for the assistance guys.

 

iso's aren't usually in .tar format .. most likely you have downloaded the source code of whatever you downloaded.

easy way to solve your format/partitioning problems.. puppy linux http://www.puppylinux.org/downloads
go for the latest production release
when it starts it will not only test everything works.. it will teach you some things about what you have got from school...

now under the "system" menu entry look for gparted.. that will do all your partitioning/formatting in a nice gui environment... and it will fly on that machinery.. after 30 minutes messing about you will wonder why you are installing windoze XD