Cannot install XP Pro from installation disc

[jstephenperry]

So I wiped my hard drive and now want to reinstall Windows XP Professional from my installation disc, but my disc just kicks me into PC DOS prompting me for input from the A:\ drive. Trying to install from the genuine SP2 CD gives me errors before it even finishes loading the installation files. My computer is a Compaq Presario, AMD 32-bit Sempron, 768mb RAM. Ever since I backed up my files and had two failed wipe attempt using first DBAN and then HD Shredder Home Edition noting has really been working. Any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Tmagic650]

The hard drive may be bad...

 

[jstephenperry]

That was my first thought, but before I wiped it it worked fine with my previous XP system. All I did was pop in the installation CD and it stopped working.

 

[gbhall]

Take your HDD out and mount it in a friendly PC in place of a CD/DVD drive. Then see what the donor PC makes of it. Likely there is now an invalid partition. On the donor PC you could then do various things, according to what facilities may be available, such as completely wipe the drive, create an empty partiton, format any existing partition as NTFS etc. Be guided by what the donor PC says it can see (if anything).

DBAN is a dangerous utility in inexpert hands, and is designed to do things you didn't oughta do. On the whole, it seems possible you actually have a linux type of partition on there now, or you have a previously hidden (compaq repair) partition as a boot partition, which would account for why PC Dos starts. DBAN probably destroyed the original bootstrap sector for the drive, which would have pointed to the second, not the first partition.

Also check the simple things - your drive cables are correctly installed, the master/slave setting is correct, the HDD spins up and the bios sees it and accurately describes what it finds, your bios boot order places the CD before the HDD etc.