XP Disk does not work with linux?

[sdpeavey]

just bought a laptop from someone and it has linux on it. If left alone, the computer boots up and starts "back track".

I am trying to install XP on the laptop and take off linux. I can not get the XP disk to run on start up. I have changed the boot order to cd. The disk starts up and then does nothing. Any ideas? Someone suggested deleting data in the mbr file. I cant get to that file. I have also tried the delpart.exe from ".microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt31/i386/reskit" this does not run either.

ANY IDEAS??? Please help. Thank you

 

[caravel]

Yes you need to rewrite the master boot record, then partition, format and reinstall. But you can't do this until you can boot from the CD and log in to the recovery console. All of this can be done through the Laptop's system BIOS setup and the Windows XP CD. The backtrack Linux distro you have installed has no bearing on your question.

If you change the boot order to CD first, then it should boot from the CD. Change the boot order to omit everything but the CD and if you then get a boot failure, you'll know that the CD or drive is the problem.

 

[sdpeavey]

thanks for the tips....
in my bios under boot order i have:

atapi cd-rom drive
floppy diskette drive
network drive
hard drive

(in that order)

i have no place in my bios to delete any of these, only change the order in which the boot up. as you can see the hard drive is last in the list. I just used the disk last night on another laptop and it worked fine.

I am able now to get to a dos window using the norton disk to start up, that way ubuntu and back track dont start. anything i can try from dos prompt? I've tried to instal xp fro dos prompt and i get a "smart drive error"