Install problems win xp home

Am trying to install win XP home. i manage to get the drive formated fine windows does its install thing then goes to reboot , and this is where the trouble starts. Instead of rebooting and continuing to load windows it goes right back to the beginngn loads basic win files and goes to the page where you choose which partition to install on. It odes this over and over and over again. Ive tried 3 different drives with the same results on each. Ive tried fromatting to NTFS and FAT 32 makes no difference.

Ive been unable to find a format command utility anywhere other than the one that comes on the win cd. I'm thinking thers some left over boot data on the disk's (all used harddrives) that may be causing the problem but have never encountered it before after 8 years of tearing and rebuilding sytems for my self frineds and family.

Is there anywher i can go to get a good formatting utility that will run from the floppy in DOS mode.

Any suggestions are apreciated.

Thanks

 

Early in the process . . when you boot from the cd, you will see a prompt "Press any key to boot from cd" . . the first time you see that prompt is the only time you should "press any key" . . just ignore it after that, and the installation should continue.

wrs

 

What I do is use the XP CD to delete all partitions, then make new partitions and format the first one to NTFS (The others I format from within Windows.

When it says "Press any key to boot from the CD... " only do this the FIRST time. Thereafter let it reboot by itself.

Have you got SP2 on the CD or have you slipstreamed SP2 with your Windows CD or is this XP Home with SP2 already incorparated?

Stick with NTFS as everything runs much better, especially if you have 512Mb of RAM or more.

Don't convert from FAT32 to NTFS. FULL formatting to NTFS is much better.

 

On the other hand, here is Microsoft's advice to manufacturers.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/winpreinst/ntfs-preinstall.mspx

It also tells you how to make the bootdisk you are asking for and which commands to use.