I have a Dell Dimension 8400 desktop running Win XP that I want to reformat and give to my son-in-law. While trying to install the Windows XP Installation disk, I somehow screwed something up and ended up getting the BSOD. I can't get my computer to read from the CD-rom even though I've gone into the BIOS and set the drive as priority. I ran a full diagnostic on the hard drive and everything came back okay. I installed 6 Windows XP floppy start up disk and when it got finished installing the 6th disk, it went back to the BSOD. I can get to a screen that gives me options to boot into Safe Mode, but when I do, I get the BSOD again. The only thing I haven't tried yet was to go into the BIOS again and set it to boot up from the hard drive first, but I'm not feely too lucky about that working either.

HELP would be greatly appreciated. My I.T. guys here at work don't have any suggestions for me.

Any changes you make, other than memory will be detected by Windows. If it senses that you are attempting a new install, it will not function. Try a different hard drive, and that will assure that it works, then you will have to run a repair install or otherwise deal with the detection of two different setups. One easy way, if your data is saved, is reformat and reinstall the hard drive, removing, then reinstalling the partition. but that will cause a lot of work.

I was able to make a change in the BIOS pertaining to the RAID setting and it finally loaded the Windows XP installation disk. But now my problem is when it gets to the Windows Set-up screen and I have options to begin installation, it won't recognize when I hit the enter key. It's like the keyboard is not operating, but I used it throughout the process prior to getting to the set-up screen. I tried another keyboard with the same results.

Go figure!!!!

Is that a USB keyboard? Can you try PS/2 keyboard and PS/2 mouse for these tests? It appears to be an install problem

Yes, I'm using a USB keyboard and mouse. I don't have a PS/2 set to use. The keyboard works for every step up to the Windows set-up screen though, that's what I can't figure out. I thought there might be a setting in the BIOS pertaining to a USB or PS/2 keyboard, but I checked this morning and no luck.

I installed a better video card and more RAM within the past year. Could this possibly be causing the freeze at the Windows set-up screen to where my keyboard won't work?

Thanks Raybay for the advice. That solved my problem. I'm up and running with a newly formatted hard drive with Windows XP. Now I just need to begin installing all my software.