Killdisked my Hard Drive, Can't install OS. Please help!

[Plaidscreen]

Hi,
I am over my head here and really need some help. I recently decided to reformat my hard drive, something I've never done before. So I backed up my data to CD, and my friend gave me a floppy with "Killdisk" on it, a program to wipe the hard drive. It took over 2 hours doing whatever it did to wipe the hard drive. Now I thought I would just put my Windows XP Pro cd in the cd drive and follow the prompts. But nothing is ever that easy! My computer tells me "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter" instead of starting up Windows XP pro. I don't know if it's related to this problem, but I am also getting told "Primary Channel: Drive not found. Secondary Channel: Drive not found". Help?

 

[Couriant]

your drives might not been partitioned yet. If the CD is not booting up, go into the BIOS and change the boot priority to where the CD-ROM is first. The CD should boot up and setup will begin. If the drives are clean and formatted, the computer should recognise that and will format it with NTFS or FAT32, whichever you choose.

 

[Plaidscreen]

Thanks Tidus,
I will try setting it to cd first in Bios, but how would I know if the drives are clean and formatted? I'm not sure if I know what that means.

 

[Plaidscreen]

Ok,
So i set the CD-Rom to first in Bios. But it did the same "Disk boot failure..." thing. Please help!

 

[Couriant]

Well if the drive is not fomatted, you will need to create the partition (C:\) so the computer recognises the drive. Since the setup will do that for you, if you do the setup, at least you will know if it's another issue becuase Windows XP should format the drive to whichever FAT table you want (recommend NTFS)

 

[crjdriver]

The drives are not formatted. Killdisk writes zeros to the drive; it is in the same condition as it was when new [excepting physical wear of the disk]

Boot with your xp cd and create a partition; it defaults to the full size of the disk. If you want more than one partition, use the backspace key to type in a new size. Leave the rest unallocated; you will use disk management to create and format additional partitions once the os is installed.

 

[Plaidscreen]

Well if the drive is not fomatted, you will need to create the partition (C:\) so the computer recognises the drive. Since the setup will do that for you, if you do the setup, at least you will know if it's another issue becuase Windows XP should format the drive to whichever FAT table you want (recommend NTFS)

Do you think you can walk me through this Tidus? I really don't know to create a partition (C:\). Thanks!

 

[crjdriver]

Here is a guide for installing xp home. There is one for pro on the same web site. It even has screenshots of the menus you will see.

 

[crjdriver]

Sorry I see you have pro. There is a guide for pro as well.

 

[Plaidscreen]

Boot with your xp cd and create a partitionQUOTE]

Is there any way to boot from my xp cd when it gives me the "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter" message?

 

[Plaidscreen]

???

 

[crjdriver]

Yes, you must set your bios to boot from the cd as first boot device. You are getting the message because the computer is trying to boot from the hd. The xp cd is bootable; just set the bios to boot from the cd first.

 

[Plaidscreen]

I have cd rom set as first priority for booting in Bios. When my computer starts trying to boot from the drives the first one it does is the cd rom. The little light on the cd drive comes on and flashes for a little bit. It makes some noise like it's reading the cd. Then the computer says "Disk boot failure, insert system disk and press enter".

 

[crjdriver]

Is this a full version of xp or is it a recovery disk? Do you see a message "to boot from cdrom press any key"? If so you only have a few seconds to press any key.

 

[crjdriver]

In some rare instances your computer may not boot from the cd. In that case download the program that makes the setup disks for you. You can download this from bootdisk.com. You will need 6 floppies to make the setup disks.