loading xp on a new system

[Joe Hugh]

So I f-disked and formated c drive using a '98 startup disk, changed to boot
from the cd-rom in the bios, but the machine will not boot from xp's
cd....and I type "setup" or "run" at the E prompt and it says "you can't do
this from DOS"
Any help will be greatly appreciated.............
Joe

 

[Rob Schneider]

So I f-disked and formated c drive using a '98 startup disk, changed to boot
from the cd-rom in the bios, but the machine will not boot from xp's
cd....and I type "setup" or "run" at the E prompt and it says "you can't do
this from DOS"
Any help will be greatly appreciated.............
Joe

The root-cause problem seems to be only that the CD doesn't boot. I
think that doing fdisk, format c:, and failing to run setup or run
(which should not work) have nothing to do with this.

Evidence suggests something wrong with CD drive or CD.

Check again that BIOS is set to boot from CD drive first.
To isolate the problem, check on another computer that your XP disk will
boot, and check with another bootable CD (another person's XP disk?)
will work in in your CD.

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

When loading XP from DOS, run the WINNT.EXE file in the I386 folder of the
CD. You'll also want to make sure that you have Smartdrv on your boot disk
and that you run it prior to starting XP's setup.

 

[Joe Hugh]

Rob nailed it............i changed the cd-rom and all my probs
disappeared........thanks Rob