Page 2 - Which Power Supply

I do not know anything about the other OS and loader you had and removed. It maybe the cause but it needs someone with more knowledge to confirm if it creates XP install loader problems.

I am not sure what advice to give you, you are correct a wipe would leave you with nothing and if it does not work (install disk load) you are then stuck until you can get it working.

Try booting without you HDD plugged in to see if it gets past the point it locks up at. If you have another old drive try and get it to load the CD with that plugged in.

If it is not a critical issue, wait a little and some of our extremely knowledgeable people will jump in and post some of their incredible wisdom.

Thanks for the response. I've tried another cd drive, and also I borrowed 2 other xp install disks and tried them---with the same results. I don't have any problems running the computer, so I really don't think it's the power supply. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Just out of curiosity can you boot into safe mode?

Thanks for the response. The computer boots into xp now. It just locks up from the install disk after it says---Windows is checking your hardware configuration.

Can you boot into safe mode using the F8 key on startup?

I am just wondering if you have a corrupted registry for other than a normal boot.

Problem solved! I had uninstalled Mandriva, removed GRUB with Suoergrub, BUT i didn't delete the linux partitions. DOH! It seems windows installer freaks out if it encounters a linux partition---can't handle a competing os I guess. I went into computer management and deleted the linux partitions, rebooted and---VIOLA, the install went seamlessly. Thanks for all the responses.