Dell Reinstall Win XP CD will not Boot

Question

It is time to reformat the hard drive.  The Dell Reinstall Win XP CD will not boot.  I tried it on another machine and did see the fleeting 'press any key to boot' msg.   I tried the old format a floppy with the system thing and it would reboot to the diskette but it would not recognize the hard drive (I think because it is NTFS).   I have tried several iterations of the boot sequence.   Thanks in advance for any help.   Jeanne Pittsburgh, PA

bacillus · Answer

Which model laptop? Have you tried tapping F12 at startup to enable the one off boot menu?

betmen · Answer

Are you sure you put the cd-rom drive as your first boot sequence and then pushed save ??

JGrazier · Answer

Sorry for the shortage of info - it is the Dell 8200 Desktop.

Regarding the boot sequence, I did change it and save it. I put the hard drive afterward so that I was sure that it would boot to something.

I am now thinking that it is the CD drive or a setting for the drive. The same Dell CD will boot on two other machines. Is it time to replace the drive?

Thanks for the time and knowledge.

Jeanne

bacillus · Answer

From what you say, it would appear that there is a problem with the drive itself.

03codyn · Answer

Have you tried what bacillus told you? Try pressing F12 during the BIOS flash screen or shortly afterwards. I have the Inspiron 5100 and have the CD/DVD drive as the first item to boot too, but it still doesn't boot to the CD by itself... I have to press F12 and then select the CD/DVD drive to boot to. Hopefully this will work for you too.

Storage, Drives & Media

Dell Reinstall Win XP CD will not Boot

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