Help--I purchased a used computer from work with no
operating system. I purchased Windows XP Home Edition (I
made sure it was not the upgrade only)and when I put it in
the cd drive all I get is "invalid system disk, rplace the
disk and press any key.
Almost certainly it's trying to boot from the hard drive, and
you're getting that message because there is no operating system
there.
The order in which it tries various devices to boot from is set
in the BIOS. You want to change that to put the CD drive first.
Go into your BIOS setup program and change it there.
By the way, assuming that you own a previous version of Windows,
you should have made sure it *was* the upgrade version, since
it's cheaper than the full version, and more versatile than the
OEM version. Despite what many people think, you *can* do a clean
installation from the upgrade version. The requirement to use an
upgrade version is to *own* a previous qualifying version, not to
have it installed. All you need to do to do a clean installation
with an upgrade is insert the previous qualifying version's CD as
proof of ownership when prompted to do so.