First, did you make sure that you were in an Administrator account when you
tried to perform this task.
Second, if you were in an administrator as opposed to limited account, given
what you've said about having this on your system, I'd venture to say, your
system is in quite a mess.
You've told us nothing about this setup, how XP came to be loaded on it or
anything else that might be installed including the software versions. If
your getting a message such as this and you are in an admin account, my
suggestion would be to format and start over clean, something you can do
from within XP setup as follows but note, this will wipe your hard drive
losing all information on it but since you can boot to the desktop, you can
at least backup your data:
NOTE: before doing so, place the XP CD in the CD-ROM drive while at the XP
desktop. When the setup screen appears, select, Check System Compatibility
and press enter. Given all that you've posted, it would be a good idea to
see if there's anything else on this system that is incompatible with XP.
Also note, before proceeding with the steps below, be sure to correct any
issues. Obviously, if they are software issues, just don't reinstall those
apps and move to applications compatible with XP after you reinstall XP
below. If you have hardware issues, those should be addressed as well as
they might cause setup to halt at which point you'd likely have to go to a
shop to get it resolved.
Assuming your system is set to boot from the CD-ROM drive, boot with the XP
CD in the drive. If it isn't or you are not sure, you need to enter the
system's BIOS. When you boot the system, the first screen usually has
instructions that if you wish to enter setup press a specific key, when you
see that, do so. Then you will have to navigate to the boot sequence, if
the CD-ROM drive is not first line, set it first in the boot sequence. Save
your settings and exit with the XP CD in the drive. The system will reboot.
A few screens into the boot process, if you see the message on the boot
screen to "Press any key in order to boot from the CD," do so.
After loading drivers and files, you should be taken to a screen with
the following:
To Setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.
To Repair a Windows XP Installation using Recovery Console press R.
To Quit setup without installing Windows XP, press F3.
In your case, press ENTER.
Agree to the License agreement by pressing F8.
You will then be taken to a screen with two options.
To repair the selected Windows XP installation press R.
To continue installing a fresh copy of Windows XP without repairing,
press ESC.
This will bring you to a partition map where you
can delete, create and format partitions.
Select the drive you wish to format, delete the partition, then create a new
partition, format as desired and continue with XP installation.
For us to go any further and I'm not sure it would be much help given some
of the things you've already posted, we'd need to know, how XP came to be
loaded, did you install it or did your it come already installed when you
purchased the computer. What operating system was on their previously as it
would appear XP was installed over that setup unless you previously
installed Easy CD Creator.
