Cheers mate I'll have a look around.

OK,

Really stuck now.

Both Sp's and Jp's tip hasn't worked. Cant boot from the XP CD or get the E' (CD) drive to go from A: as per SP's notes.

What's going on from here????

Semi stuck folks ??

Help????????????

:(:(:(

Sorry to hear of your probs Guy...

Did you try setting the Bios to make your PC boot from a CD Drive?

I seem to remember that the 'emergency recovery disk' that can be created also contains generic drivers to allow a CD to be used - if the Bios method will not work maybe try the boot floppy method and see how ya go.

Good luck - Frank

Thanx Frank,

Yup,

Altered my Bios to go to ATAPI CD ROM first then floppy then HDD. SYstem just boots up as normal although I am getting a screen where I have to choose between XP Pro (my normal OS) and the aborted XP Pro setup (the one I initially began from the XP Setup CD from winthin Windows)

Tried the boot from floppy (made the floppy from 'Format in Windows and then 'ticked' the 'make system disk' option).

When I follow SP's notes all I get is the old chestnut "Invalid Drive Specification"

Am afraid that if I do get to a stage of formatting my HDD, I will then not be able to read floppy or CD in order to get my OS back on again.

Any advice JPM or SP??

Thanks in advance

Guy

I had a similar problem trying to format a NTFS hard drive. I solved it by using a Win 98 boot up floppy. I was then able to FDISK the drive and then reformat it in FAT32 (I was doing a Win ME set up on a relatives PC). From what I understand XP sorts all the FDISK and Format out for you. So once you have done the business, set the BIOS to read the CD rom 1st and then boot up with the CD in the drive. You can download Win ME boot disks off the net

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

or I can post one to you.

Hmmmmm....

Is there actually a problem with your CD/DVD drive at all?

Can you try another CD or do you not think this is an issue.

Apart from grabbing my coat on the way out here is a nugget of info from MS themslves:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;316941

Good luck ! Frank

I beginning to think my issue is with my XP Installation CD. It is not booting at all. I've set my system to 'Autorun' and it finds the CD from within windows and starts the setup process but this does not give me the options JPM/Freak mentions above like Format the partition.

I've tried making a bootable CD via advice from IT help forums and site on the NET, but I'd be better off designing a rocket on a fag packet and making it in my back garden shed and flying to the moon one starry night :mad: :mad: :mad: I don't know how to edit my config.sys and real mode boot files etc and play about with Hex code... even if I knew what they were in the first place.

Looks like I'm gonna have to buy another XP Pro OS unless someone can lend me their CD (I have my licence keys).

Gc

A fully fledged member of the "When the frig will something go right .....when I want it too club"

Chrisw's method is worth a try, you would'nt partition the drive would you?

Thanks Steve Chris and Frank,

I have two hard drives but it's just the C: I want to format as thisis the one with all my apps, trojans, junk on. The 2nd drive holds all my video, photo's, music etc. Both drives are non-partitioned (i.e. one is C: @ 40GB and the other is D: at 120GB).

I have produced the six XP setup disks as per the Microsoft Support site.

They run fine at 'bootup' but at the end of the 6th disk, you are asked to insert your XP Setup CD and press Enter. My XP Setup CD is already in the drive and I press Enter. The screen flickers for a split second and the message remains "insert your XP Setup CD and press Enter"........ I can press Enter all day and nothing happens. It just hangs there at the 6th disk screen.

Even if I can get to a stage in DOS where I get the option to format my drive, I am very reluctant to do this knowing my XP Setup CD isn't acting like it should. Once my data and OS are gone I'm knackered if I can't get past 'go' to putting it back on.

[Edited on 13-3-2005 by Guido]

I'll u2u u mate