Can't install windows 9x or XP!

[PsychonX]

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!

 

[Paul Nagel]

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.