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Hi guys, I'm having what seems to me a huge problem installing XP onto a hard drive I used as storage but am giving to my parents.

I have read quite a few tutorials but cant find the problem im facing. I've set my BIOS to reboot first off the CDROM then disabled the 2nd and 3rd boot options.

I insert the XP cd and it starts to boot from the cd, i go through the menu's...it reformats my HDD, then starts to install windows onto it. Then it tells me its done and needs to reboot with this screen:



Then the computer restarts, I leave the cd in the drive because thats what a few sites have said to do and when this screen appears:



Straight after the dots comes this error message:

"A disk read error occurred.
Press CTRL + ALT + DEL to restart"

At which point I press ctrl/alt/del and it happens again and again.

As far as I can tell at this point windows should start up right? So am I doing something wrong?

Its driving me mental so any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Ben

Reformat the drive and Check the disk for scratches.

The first time i full formatted it during the reinstallation, then i did a full format through windows, and have tried to reinstall windows onto the drive a few times - each time quick formatting the drive.

Dont know if it'll help - but for information the drive seems to work fine as a secondary storage (as it is now). Also, when i have it as a secondary storage as i have now i can see the windows folder on it (from where windows tried to install earlier?)

As for checking it for scratches? - not sure how to do that?

Thanks

Hi, after it reaches the Your computer will reboot in X seconds screen, take out the CD and any Floppy disk. The setup has already copyed all the files to the hard drive and the CD is no longer necesary. Give this a shot and tell us what happens.