Issues Installing XP

[keithleonard1992]

Hey, so long story short, my computer had several problems which I thought I had solved, only to learn that as a result of them my hard drive had switched formats from NTFS to RAW. None of the convert commands I've tried have worked, and so I decided fuck it, I'm just going to reformat, something which I've never done before but heard was very easy.

I get all my drivers ready, everything seems good. I run Windows XP (Home Edition if that's relevant), it goes to restart my computer, no problems. I'm asked to pick an OS to start up in, my choices being Windows XP Home Edition (what I have installed if you didn't catch on) and Windows XP Home Edition Setup. For obvious reasons, I pick setup. Here's where the problem comes in. I click it, the screen goes black for a second. Then my new mortal fucking enemy shows up - the white blinking _. My computer usually goes to a similar screen when starting up for a little, so I figure it's nothing, and go to take a shower. When I come back, my computer is just glaring at me, blinking _ _ _ _ _. Undeterred, I restart my computer and try again. The same thing. I used my previous OS to try to search the internet, but have been unable to find anything, and Microsoft is closed for the evening. Has anything like this ever happened to any of you when trying to reformat?

For what it's worth, the initial ailment was the System Security virus, which I managed to remove. Not long after its removal, I blue screened, and when I got back on various odd things started to occur (iTunes asking for my approval every time I restart my computer, WoW addons folder disappearing, settings not saving, that sort of thing). Further investigation into these symptoms led to my learning that my hard drive had switched formats. Again, for what it's worth, I learned this through force running a checkdisk, which didn't end up running because, apparently, checkdisk is not available for RAW drives. Checking my C:/ properties, I learned that, like all Windows formatted drives, it should be NTFS.

[kyamei]

This might be a stupid question, but are you booting from the Windows CD?

If you are booting from the CD it should not be reaching the point where it asks what OS you would like to start, it should load setup straight from the disc. You may have to press a button (esc or f12 on some machines) to access the boot menu where you can select what drive (you want the CD drive) to boot with. If don't know what button to press for the boot menu, change the boot order in BIOS.

[Caiyuo]

The blinking "_" as I remember is from the computer not being able to boot into something. When I was servicing a desktop that the HD died in, trying to boot from the HD did nothing but give the blinking underscore.

I'm a little confused, can you boot into XP regularly at all or has the HD/partition been converted from NTFS already and totally borked?

Either way is your BIOS set to boot to the Windows CD (assuming you're using one) ahead of the hard drive? I can't imagine why that would happen so early in the install process as it should boot from the CD and open the large blue setup screen, load the contents into memory and give you options to begin creating/deleting partitions and choosing where to install. D:

[keithleonard1992]

Thanks for the quick replies. Yes, I can boot into (is it partition? lets go with that) my old XP partition just fine, no changes. Aside from settings not saving, my computer is working fine, but I'm sick of having to reset every setting ever whenever I start my computer.

I tried loading from the CD by going into my BIOS and setting it to #1 priority. I was asked to click my any key, but couldn't find it.... I jest. At the click any key screen, I was reading something and didn't notice for a second, at which point the screen had already disappeared and my arch nemesis the blinking _ had returned. I didn't give it a second try, but I suppose I'll try that now. Thanks again for the quick replies, I'll post results positive or negative in an amount of time appropriate to the result.

[Caiyuo]

Yes, generally when booting from a CD they'll ask that you press any key to confirm that you want to. Never waited to see if the screen went away, admittedly. lol

[keithleonard1992]

Well I feel dumb - that was exactly it. In my defense, it stayed up for all of about 3 seconds. Anyway, on to the arduous task of downloading all my drivers again. Thanks for the help.

[Caiyuo]

No problem, glad it worked out. I learned something new too (the press key wait time!) so all is well. lol