installation issues

[Tony]

Simple question...can windows XP be installed on a system
where the hard drive has no operating system on it. In
other words...you build a box, put all the components in
it, put the windows XP CD in the cd-rom drive and start
the box up. If the bios is setup to boot from a cd, will
XP install itself? It isn't installing itself in my
situation.

 

[John Dingley]

Yes it can.

You may need to format the disk if it is new, but XP should ask you if you
want to format and what type of file system.

 

[John Dingley]

My previous reply is based on the assumtion that the XP disc is not an oem
version.

 

[purplehaz]

It should work that way. If the drive is new, did you create a partition on
it? What exactly is happening, need more info than "its not installing".

 

[Alex Nichol]

Simple question...can windows XP be installed on a system
where the hard drive has no operating system on it. In
other words...you build a box, put all the components in
it, put the windows XP CD in the cd-rom drive and start
the box up. If the bios is setup to boot from a cd, will
XP install itself?

That is the normal way to install it. The CD is bootable, and if you
set BIOS to boot CD before HD it will boot, enter Setup, and give you
the opportunity to define size of partition on hard disk and format it.

Are you sure the BIOS has been correctly set for that boot order?