XP Recovery Disk Keeps Rebooting

what software are you using to burn?

I burned the CD on a mac; it is NOT itunes, but Finder (Windows Explorer).
The image file shows correctly on the CD when viewed on the mac, as a .iso file.
I guess I can try tracking down another PC to download and burn the file onto a disk, but this does not seem to be the problem, in my opinion.

What burning app are you using on the MAC

I just got my hands on a working pc and downloaded the file. I burned it to a CD using Roxio CD Creator. It resides on the CD as an image file. I put it into the broken PC and booted from it. Still getting "disk read error occurred Press ctrl+alt+del to restart" message.

The reason I am confused is the following: "disk read error" implicated cannot read hard drive. we know this. When you request your PC to start from the CD the purpose is to avoid reading the disk.

Below is the link on how to burn a .ISO on a cd using nero or roxio. If you have followed the steps then you are not starting from the CD. If in fact you have a good copy of the CD and you are starting from the CD and still receiving this error, then you have a much more serious problem.

http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/burning_iso.html

Or you might have a floppy in the drive! which I doubt

Okay, I got the pc to boot from the drive fitness test cd, and I have a Primary Master Device Name:HTS541080G9AT00 Capacity 80.03GB

Is this Device List Correct? Yes/No

{Select the drive that you want to test}

I'm going to go ahead and test the drive.

Excellent, lets to do a complete test of this drive.

PC DOS 7.0 Startup Menu
====================

1. for Adaptec
2. for LSI 320 Controller
3. for Tekram & Symbios Controllers
4. for ATTO 320 Controller

Enter a choice:_

I'm assuming I choose 1 for this one. Please confirm, thanks.

All right, I just jumped ahead and chose #1 from the menu.
It ran an advanced disk fitness check and basically came back with bad things to report, and then asked me if I would like to rewrite (erase) the disk or repair it.
Since I don't have anything that I'm worried about losing on this PC, I opted for a full reformatting of the drive/disk.
It asked me if I was sure/REALLY sure and then went and did its thing.
It is now saying:

Technical Result Code

Drive Information
Serial Number X6GYRA7M
Failure Code : 0x75 - Defective Device. Component Failure.

Test Date : 14-01-2010 (dd-mm-yyyy)

Technical Result Code (TRC)

750003F2

> OK <

So, what now? Is "defective device/component failure" as bad as it sounds?
Thanks,
-Shawn

That is correct, your hardrive is dead, sorry. You are going to have to buy a new drive and replace it.

Then you should not have any issues reinstalling the OS

All right, that's okay, as I've said I had nothing on there that was a big deal to lose.
I bought this laptop cheap so I don't mind throwing a little money into a new hard drive. I've never installed one before, so I'm looking forward to an exciting experience!!
Thanks ever so much for your assistance. I've had relatively few PC problems in the past couple of years, but when I do I always find courteous and professional help on this forum. Thanks again, and best of luck to you in this still-very-new year.

-Shawn

It was a pleasure, hopefully next time will be able to fix the problem without spending any money.