problem when installing xp on a laptop

[Mr anderson]

im trying to re-install xp on my laptop after a format, but it will not go back on. what happens is , it goes as far as when you got the press f8 to agree and then it just shuts down, so i tried win98 i had dosing around to see if it was the laptop but that works great? any ideas why xp wont go bk on?

[Abbadon]

Use the restore CD that came with the laptop, I am sure it came preconfigured.

You may order another set if you threw away your discs.

[Mr anderson]

never came with the laptop

[redwudz]

Did you repartition the hard drive before you formatted? Otherwise there may still be remnants from the previous install. Laptops may have more than one partition. The other partition may have restore files on it.

Worst case, if you have a floppy drive, you can repartition with a copy of the W98 startup disc using the fdisk utility. But don't format there as it only has a Fat32 option.
'
I now use a Windows PE CD disc to wipe the old install. (Google for 'Bart PE') Then with the XP install disc, I delete the main partition, then repartition, reformat and re-install XP.

[biviray]

I had similar problems with a couple of pc's. Could load Win98 and ME, but could not load 2000 or XP. Changed the memory and no problem. It seems the XP and 2000 use more of the memory than Win98 or ME and they just didn't use the failing part of the memory.