Windows XP won't install

[Wedge]

I'm trying to do a clean install of XP.

The initial boot of the CD and partition goes fine, then when the system gets to the first re-boot it just goes back to the start and begins the process over again.

It's done it many times now, I have tried a couple of boot disks and fdisked and formatted several times.

It's still doing it and I have no idea what the problem is.

I'm about to flash the BIOS. Or put the HD into another machine to format it.

The system was working fine previously (until the video card broke down which started all the problems).

The only difference is that I have replaced the CPU which is an identical model to the previous.

Motherboard is Gigabyte GA-7N400-L
Processor is AMD Athlon XP3000+

btw I have tried to access the system recovery program (by hitting F9 on startup) but it doesn't work.

I can get into BIOS and Qflash.

Any suggestions gratefully received, many thanks.

[Conan the Librarian]

looks like you and JimGriff really know how to have fun on a Saturday Morning. Try here - I find it a very good XP site.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/index.htm


Conan

[Wedge]

Thanks Conan.

I'm formatting it on another machine, then I'll try to re-install.

[Memetic]

Hi,

I had a similar problem a couple of years back, the drive reported a bad sector somwhere where for some unknown reason windows insisted on having something stored.

A normal, i.e. DOS/Windows, format would not fix it. I had to get a low level format tool from the drive manufacturer's website. It took about 3 hours to test and restor the drive to a factory fresh condition but it has worked perfectly ever since!

Best of luck.

Memetic