xps 600 reboots and loops after a clean xp install

[bigneeker]

I have a huge problem.
I am using a dell xps 600 with a 250gb hd. I disabled raid in the bios because im only using one hd and then i formatted the hd and then went on to install xp partition 1 and it installs fine, but after it tells me its going to reboot and i take out the installation cd the computer just starts looping.
the dell window with the progress bar appears and then it loops and reboots and its back to the dell logo screen with the progress bar, its like xp never installed. I tried reinstalling xp and the same problem occurs. Can i not install xp on a non raid drive? it makes no sense.

does anyone have a solution?

the previous setup was with raid and it worked fine but now im just trying to install regularly without raid on one hd

 

[bigneeker]

i would like to add that it doenst actually install windows xp, just the setup files. it starts looping after the "your computer will reboot in 14 seconds" message. after that reboot it just loops and loops on the dell screen.

 

[howard_hopkinso]

Hello and welcome to Techspot.

All you`re doing wrong is taking the Windows disk out. Don`t and then setup will continue.

Here`s some step by step instructions.

You need to do the following.

1 restart your computer and go to setup usually by pressing the F2 or delete key.

2 Once you get into setup look for the boot menu and make sure you set it to boot from cd first followed by your hard drive.

3 Put the Windows xp disk into your cd.

4 Now save your settings and exit setup.

5 While your computer is booting you will see a message that says "press any key to boot from cd" press any key.

6 When the welcome to setup screen appears press enter and then press F8 to accept the Microsoft licence agreement.

7 You will be prompted to repair an insallation press the escape key.

8 Now select the partition that you want to reformat and press the D key to delete it you will be asked to confirm that you want to delete the partition.

9 Now press C to create a brand new partition you will be asked what size you want the partition to be in mega bytes. If you just press enter then the partition will be the maximum size that you can have. This is perfectly ok if you don`t want to create multiple partitions.

10 You will now be asked to format the partition select the ntfs file sytem and do a full format.

11 Once the format is complete setup will continue.

Your computer will restart during the remaining setup again you will be asked to press any key to boot from cd DO NOT PRESS ANYTHING. and setup will continue. Once the setup is complete and you are back in Windows remove the Windows cd from your cd drive.

Regards Howard :wave: :wave: