new installations on donated computers

[Guest]

Hi,
Our school was recently donated a bunch of IBM P4's with Windows XP Pro
COA'a but the hard drives are wiped clean. I understand that we are allowed
to reinstall from XP from any existing media we have but I'm having problems
doing it! The only media I have is a Operating System CD that came with one
of the school's notebooks. When I put it in the cdrom and set the computer to
boot from the cdrom, it gives the message operating system not found.

Can anyone tell me how to install XP on these computers? Thanks

 

[Michael Stevens]

In

Hi,
Our school was recently donated a bunch of IBM P4's with Windows XP
Pro COA'a but the hard drives are wiped clean. I understand that we
are allowed to reinstall from XP from any existing media we have but
I'm having problems doing it! The only media I have is a Operating
System CD that came with one of the school's notebooks. When I put it
in the cdrom and set the computer to boot from the cdrom, it gives
the message operating system not found.

Can anyone tell me how to install XP on these computers? Thanks

I am not familiar with IBM's restore procedure, but there could be a hidden
restore partition located on the hard drives that will return the computers
to the original shipped state. You should contact IBM and find out how to
restore the systems to their original shipped state. If IBM does not have a
solution, you will need at the very least a single OEM version of XP Pro to
use to install XP Pro and hopefully the COA located on each computer will be
accepted. If this does not work, you will need to purchase a full retail or
OEM version for each computer.
You could also install a distro of Linux for free. Not as user friendly out
of the box, but getting better if you pay for the user friendly tweaks. You
see capitalism really does run the software world. Try Umbutu.
How to clean install XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
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[Jerry Haney]

Hi,
Our school was recently donated a bunch of IBM P4's with Windows XP Pro
COA'a but the hard drives are wiped clean. I understand that we are allowed
to reinstall from XP from any existing media we have but I'm having problems
doing it! The only media I have is a Operating System CD that came with one
of the school's notebooks. When I put it in the cdrom and set the computer to
boot from the cdrom, it gives the message operating system not found.

Can anyone tell me how to install XP on these computers? Thanks

Go to
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=dim_bios&mess
age.id=42078&c=us&l=en&cs=&s=gen

 

[Chuck]

It sounds like it's not booting from the CD. Perhaps the CD is not bootable.
On some IBM computers, part of the "BIOS" functions are on the hard drive in
a hidden partition. If this was wiped, the IBM will not boot without a
default boot device other than the Hard Drive with the needed data. Some of
the older systems would boot from a specially prepared floppy.