Trouble reinstalling xp home

[patch41]

Hi folks, I got given to me an old dell inspiron 1100 laptop pc, It had xp home basic on it, so i tried to install vista basic, i formatted the disc and installed vista basic, It installed okey but instead of the picture covering the whole screen 15-inch its only about 9-inch,I think that was because i didn't do my homework, when i checked the microsoft specs the minimum is 512 mb memory and 20 gb hardrive for vista basic, this has 640-mb memory, but only 18.5gb hardrive, so i formatted the hardrive and tried to reinstall xp, I get a black screen, and when i press ctrl-alt-delete, it restarts, the dell logo comes up but i cant get any further,I can put the vista install disc in the drive and it does reconize that, any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

[tom982]

Try changing this to boot from a CD:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/205005-boot-priority-change.html

Tom

 

[patch41]

thanks tom for your reply, yes i did, did not help

 

[tom982]

Okay, download this and burn it to a CD:

GParted -- Live CD/USB/PXE/HD

Using IMGBurn

Boot into this, then delete all of your partitions. Until you have all of the space labelled as "Unallocated"

Then create one big partition out of all of this space and format it with NTFS <-- VERY IMPORTANT

Once its made this large NTFS partition. Shutdown your computer. Then try installing XP onto this

Tom

 

[patch41]

Hi Tom, sorry didn't get back to you sooner,Worked on it last night dowloaded live cd/usb/pxe/hd, burnt it to disc, but still no luck booting in to it, even tried there tips on trouble rebooting, but no luck, but when i install vista basic i have no trouble, so i installed vista basic, downloaded paragon freeware, and did a clean swipe of the disc, tried to install xp on it comes on the black screen cannot find op system ( see attachment ) and the xp disc seems to be good as i try it in my desktop and it shows up,thanks for your help,Patch41

 

[tom982]

Are you aware of what PXE is? You haven't set a PXE server up have you?

Are you sure you've set your computer to boot from CD?

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/205005-boot-priority-change.html

Tom

 

[patch41]

Hi Tom no i dont know what PXE is and i didn't set it up, I went into the bios, went to boot and set cd-drive to top of the list, and hit f10 key to save the settings, thanks Tom for helping an ex-brit out, Patch41.

 

[tom982]

And what happens when you try to boot from a CD now? Any change?

No worries buddy if you don't mind me asking, where are you now?

Tom

 

[patch41]

Hi Tom originally from liverpool, spend summers NY, winters Florida, I got up today, decided to do a clean swipe of the disc again it is still cleaning the disc last time it took about 3-4hrs, then i am going to make sure that the dvd-drive is on top, and then try the xp again, I will let you know how things go, Thanks Patch41.

 

[tom982]

Well NY and Florida are much nicer places than Liverpool! Looks like you made the right choice

Well I'm an ex-yank, lived in the states for a few years when I was much younger and now we've moved to Britain

Sounds good to me, what are you wiping the disc with? 3-4 hours is a long time for a format! But apart from that, it all sounds good to me

Tom

 

[patch41]

Hi Tom, just finished the clean swipe of disc, Did it with paragon freeware, tried the xp disc in again, nothing even had a friend let me borrow his disc,just in case mine was corrupt, Still nothing no operating system found, yet when i put the vista disc in it comes up right away, press any key to start, Patch41

 

[tom982]

Hmm that's odd.

Does it do anything before displaying that message? Does it recognize that there's a disc in there or not?

According to Microsoft, that message is displayed when one (or more) of the following problems occur:

• The basic input/output system (BIOS) does not detect the hard disk.
• The hard disk is damaged.
• Sector 0 of the physical hard disk drive has an incorrect or malformed master boot record (MBR).
  Note Some third-party programs or disk corruption can damage an MBR.
• An incompatible partition is marked as Active.
• A partition that contains the MBR is no longer active.

When you wiped your hard drive, what did you do to the space? Is it a partition? Or is it unallocated?

Tom

 

[patch41]

No it doesnt reconize the xp disc, but it does the vista disc,after i wiped the disc clean i havent done anything, I am left with a black screen saying operating system not found, I press ctrl-alt-delete, and when the dell logo comes up i can get into bios, I move the highlight along to booting and then make sure dvd-drive is at the top of list, put xp disc in drive and it does nothing,

 

[tom982]

Would you be able to get your hands on an external cd drive?

Tom

 

[patch41]

Yes tom i have a 500gb and 1-terabyte, but there both usb cords somebody else suggested that and the pc said i think it would have to be sata, or ieee, or something like that connected,

 

[tom982]

Would you be able to get your hands on an external cd drive?

Tom

Tom

 

[patch41]

Only my wifes laptop, or my desktop, but no i dont have an external cd-dvd drive

 

[patch41]

This is a mystery tom, you seem to be leaning to a bad cd-drive, but it does reconize the vista disc

 

[tom982]

This has thrown me completely, there's things pointing in every direction!

The fact it reads Vista discs makes me think its a problem with the XP disc itself
The fact that it doesn't read other XP discs makes me think its a problem with the cd drive - or a compatibility problem between XP and your computer

There is a way of doing it, but it would involve you buying a cable and would take a lot of time, I can tell you if you're interested?

Or you could start a new thread, and see what the others have to say? Or you could buy a larger hard drive and replace the one that you currently have, allowing you to be able to install Vista?

Tom

 

[patch41]

Thanks for your time and help tom, I can install vista and it works perfectly well, but the picture is not a full screen, this is a 15inch screen and vista only comes in about 9 inch picture,but i thank you again tom, I am keeping my eye on the hurricane, i am about 1-hour north of the city, we will get some high winds but i think it will be just a rainmaker, Patch41,
ps, will stay in touch.