I just formatted my HD with the Maxtor Software that came with my HD. Now it says to install OS from floppy press a key. to go to C Prompt type c.

Now my OS I want to install is on disc. When I go to the c prompt it doesnt recognize any drive letters, it just stays on c. Basically I dont know how to get to the Disc Drive Drive letter prompt so I can run the setup on my OS Disc.

I will be installing Win XP on it.

Thanks for any assistance you can give me,

Jimmy

Welcome to Techspot jimmy!
You can exit out of that prompt ,and reboot your computer.
When you see the boot up screens go into your Bios and change the Boot device order to CD rom first.
then reboot get the windows disk in the rom ,and follow prompts to boot from the CD.
You will be able to Partition and install windows from there.

Well LL, I did as you said, I went into Bios, changed the first to CD-rom and the second says Hard Drive.

Now when the computer boots up it says OS Load in progress

Then

ez-bios :initializing
ez-bios : Hold the CTRL key down for status screen or to boot from floppy
ex-bios : Continuing startup...

Starting Windows 95...


Microsoft (r) Windows 95

C:\> blinking cursor

thats it. when I type in dir on the c prompt it says

command com

the hard drive initially had Win 95 on it. I added a maxtor HD and used the software to format and partition it. I used the software to format the hard drive again and here I am.

when I reboot it definatley does not start up my Win XP Disc that is in the CD Rom.

Please Help,

Jimmy

Go back into your bios and make sure it still has boot to cd first. Be sure to save new settings, usually f10 button saves. Put XP disk in cdrom. Reboot. During the boot it should say something like "press any key to boot from cdrom" Press a key at that point and it should start loading from cdrom. If you don't it will preceed to the HD. Also, be sure to remove any floppies.

During the Xp install it will come to a point where you can format your HD and create partitions if you want. I would suggest you format then.

"Malibu Quote;

"the hard drive initially had Win 95 on it. I added a maxtor HD and used the software to format and partition it. I used the software to format the hard drive again and here ..."

I am sorry but I am a little confused.You have 2 Hdd 1. 'Old' had Win 95 and you formatted it , and you want to install XP on it .
2.'New' Is a new Hdd that you formatted with Maxtor's software .

Try what Dad... says ,if that does not work go to this;

When you were at the screen(Not quotation marks) ' C:\> ' just type
'D:\i386\winnt32.exe ' ,press' enter', "D" must be the drive letter of your Cd rom drive so it might be E or F in your case.I cannot tell because you have not given the break down for the formatted drives.
When XP starts I recommend you re-format and partition your Drives using the Xp disk it will get rid of stuff in the boot area of your old drive.
If this does not work ,you will need to give us a breakdown of each HDD , eg. Partitions ,Fat32 , Size ,primary ,Slave , etc.

.

First off the HD was installed and formatted and partitioned. I used this computer for quite some time. Well it was crashing and I formatted the HD with the Maxtor Software and it partitions the hd into like 5 hd's.

When the format is done it says says to install os from floppy insert the first disk into a drive.

type a to begin os installation

type c to skip os installation and boot to c:

. So I have no OS on Floppy so I hit c.

Now it is at the C prompt. I restart the computer and it says

Microsoft (r) windows 95

C\> blinking cursor

so I restart computer and change bios boot options so the CD rom is the primary drive. f10 to save it.

Restart with Windows XP disc in CD rom. again it goes to the cprompt with flashing cursor.

the Maxtor software formats to fat 16 I think and formats the drive into several partions.

When it goes to the c prompt I have no idea what the cd rom drive letter is or how to find out or if it is available.

So there you go, maybe you can help me from here.

thanks,

Jimmy

The drive letter will be the next letter in the alphabet from the last letter from the final Partition you installed .
5 from C + one = H:\ ( try every letter up from C:\ if you have to)
If this does not work you are going to need to download and make a Bootdisk.
You are probably right the the HDD is probably formatted Fat 16 ,but that won't matter you are definitely going to reformat with the XP disk.
Also make sure you did not leave the Maxtor floppy disk in your A:\ drive
Good luck

Some older boards seem to have trouble booting from CD-ROM's. On my old Abit BE6, I had to plug my CD-ROM cable into the first IDE in order for 1st boot device to fire up the CD. Make sure you unplug the pc first before working inside the box! Hope this helps. BTW, personally haven't had much luck with ezbios; Windows XP has all the partitioning stuff you need.

like aglennon said about the maxtor ezbios partition/format software. I have not had much success with it and I have had quite a few maxtors. It is best to use the one in the XP install.
I take that you never had a prompt to "press any key to boot from CDROM"? It usually won't boot to it without some action (push key) on your part.Also like aglennon said, if you have an old board you may need to make your cdrom the master on the first ide plug on the motherboard. It could be marked ide 0 on the board.

What sized HD do you have? I would caution you not to make the boot partition (the one you load the OS on, most likely C:/) too small. Make it at least 8-10gb. They tend to fill up with programs, documents, etc. So if you had 5 partitions, what size were they?

If you don't have a boot disk and you download one make sure it has cdrom drivers.

Download XP's boot floppies and boot with them.

www.bootdisk.com

Download smartdrv.exe from here: http://www.broomeman.com/support/smartdrv.html
Put that on a floppy disk, put the floppy disk in your comp that you are trying to put XP on.
From the Win95 prompt where you see c:\ and then flashing cursor type the following:
A:\smartdrv.exe
<CDDRIVE>:\I386\winnt.exe

Now your XP install will begin.

well sngx1275, I tried what you said and this is what happened.

I went to a: prompt and typed in smartdrv and hit enter

it then said.

Cant be loaded because the xms driver himem.sys is not loaded. Check the config.sys file for a device=himem.sys command line.

Now this is completely foreign to me. I pray that this means something to you and you can help me get my Win XP installed and my computer up and running.

Thank you so very much for your help,

Jimmy

Ok, your Windows95 is not really functionable even in dos prompt mode then. What you need to do is grab youself another floppy and go to www.bootdisk.com and download a windows98 or 98se or me boot floppy. Boot from that, with cdrom support (its an option you will be given). Then once you get to the command prompt take out the boot disk and put in the one with smartdrv.exe on it then type a:\smartdrv.exe.

One thing to watch is when you are booting with cd rom support after its done it will tell you above the command prompt what your cd drive is lettered.

Then type in what I said above abotu the I386\winnt.exe

OK,

You guys can flame me all you want, but this needs to be said:

You are wasting your time installing a newer Operating System on technology that is on a par with my clock radio. That is IF your PC came with 95 on it.

Bite the bullet and get a new system with XP pre-loaded. You should be able to get an entry-level system at Wal-Mart or Best Buy with XP Home for $300 or less. If your monitor, keyboard and mouse are OK, all you need is the CPU box. Any peripherals you already have should also work fine.

I am not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but $300 can be saved up in a few months by most people (many stores have financing) and it is usually deductible on your taxes if you claim it as educational supplies.

Welcome to the 21st Century!

I wont flame you, but I will tell you I just built me a brand new computer because of this old one causing problems. My grandmother expressed interest in having a computer so she can type her memoirs, so I am trying to get this going for here!!!

well sng, I did as you said,, downloaded the bootdisk. I put it in a drive and rebooted. It came up and immediatley said take out media and hit any key. I did and it went to the normal c prompt.

I then changed to a prompt and typed in boot98 which is the file name on the boot disk. It said cant be run in dos mode. I dont understand why when I put the boot disk in the a drive, and when it booted up and tried to read the a drive it would do the boot.

Crap. well maybe this means something to you.

thanks, Jim

Well I just got smartdrv torun. It said y was my drive. I then typed in \i386\winnt.exe and it said this below on a blue screen
Windows XP Setup
Internal error has occured.Could not find place for a swap file


So getting closer, maybe??

thanks, Jim

I think you need to re-format your HD. Boot to the new boot disk. At the A prompt, type "format c:" without the quotation marks. This should re-format the HD from the ezmax format to dos.

I think that if he has a win98se or winMe Boot disk he should just run fdisk and eliminate all the partition information. This is quick and easy. Then reboot and choose boot with cd rom support. Then navigate to the i386 directory on the cd drive and run winnt.exe (winnt32.exe cannot be run from dos prompt. When the computer is booting it will tell you the drive letter or letters of your cd roms.) Or just type 'D:\i386\winnt.exe ' (Where D is the drive letter of your cd rom.)at the ?:\ prompt. (?:\ should be a ramdrive .) After the Winxp boot sequence starts I believe that it will ask you to use smartdrive, but you don't have to. It will just take longer to install XP. If you are like me, I will usually let it do it's thing and come back a couple hrs later so the length of time it takes isn't that critical. Hope this helps.

Oops, looks like the Hd needs to be formatted so the install can create temporary files. It needs to be at least 500k and fat32. I don't believe it can be read by dos if it's ntfs and fat16 isn't good for XP.