Can't install windows 9x or XP!

Alright, I'm posting here in hopes that some of you can help me with my problem. I just bought a new computer, and I'm trying to install an OS on it, more specifically windows XP. Currently, it has nothing but DOS on it.

I find out that the XP setup program will not work in dos, so I turn to windows 95 in hopes that I can upgrade to XP from there. Everything is going fine and dandy until I run the win95 setup program and it asks me to run scandisk.

Having no choice, I run it, and it tells me it has problems with some compression on my hard drive or something. I check the hard drive, and there is basically nothing there but command.com and a few other miscellaneous files. So I tried reformatting, using Fdisk to repartition, everything I could do with the tools on hand. Every time I have tried to install Windows 95, it still gives me the same message. Can anyone help? What is the problem here? I know there isn't any drive compression (doublespace/drivespace) on it unless the people who built the computer compressed the drive without telling me...
How can I get around this problem and install Windows 95 so I can upgrade to XP?

Thank you for reading my lengthy post, and bear with me because I'm not as tech savvy as you guys. Any and all help is appreciated!

 

Boot with a Win98 boot disk, and at the A prompt type FDISK /MBR which should clear any erronous entries in the master boot record. Next do Fdisk and setup the drive(s) the way you want, reboot and format the drives/partitions.