Can't Reinstall Windows XP Pro on a Dell 4600

Question

I have tried to reinstall windows xp pro on my computer but I can’t get it to install. This is what I have done. I have put in the windows xp pro cd into the cd rom and opened it up from my computer and it told me that the current version of windows was newer than the version of window on the cd. I couldn’t do anything else but click cancel to get out of it. So then I restarted my computer and was waiting for it say 'press any key to boot from cd' and it never popped up, I know I didn’t miss it, I was watching for it and then it booted to windows. So then I made the CD ROM device the first boot device and still nothing. It sill never said 'press any key to boot from cd'. It booted to windows again. I tried pressing F12 to boot from CD ROM again. Still it did not boot from the cd. I tried resetting the BIOS and still nothing. I tried other cd’s such as windows home and ME. It still wouldn’t boot from the cd. I tried installing Linux on it, Linux installed just fine. I put the Hard Drive in another computer and it would install window fine. I even zero write the drive to see if that helped. Still nothing. I contacted dell and what they told me still didn’t help. Does anyone have any suggestions that I could do?     Thanks LSW7

rollainm · Answer

First of all, you're on the wrong board. This is for XP Pro x64.   But I might have the solution to your problem:   The XP Pro CD is probably actually a DVD and your first optical drive is probably just a CD drive. If your second optical drive is a DVD drive, you may have to open your case and switch them so that the DVD drive is the primary.

mozzymania · Answer

I am an absolute newbie...and had the same problem. Read my post..just got solved http://http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/board/message?board.id=sw_winxp&message.id=168969#M168969

Windows General

Was this post helpful?