Reformatting going nowhere

[Bulls]

I'm reviving a pc for my boy. It has a trial version of vista ult on it. I want to reformat with my xp disk. So far, I've gotten no progress. Booting with the disk in gives me vista saying that windows did not shut down properly. Options for safe mode and the like appear. I want to reformat. Did get into dos and set cd to be first boot device, and the pc loops on the previous mention. Looking for another tactic. Thank you.

[aidanjt]

When the disc spins up on boot look for the "Press any key to continue", press a key to get WinPE running Windows XP setup.

[s_kinton]

Surely, you just change the BIOS to boot from the CD/DVD drive. Do as aidanjt says above and just format it through there?

Where are you trying to format from?

[Bulls]

This is what I did many times to now. The screen that posts the system hardware was intermitant and the keyboard is not always active at that point in the boot process.

[Bulls]

Not sure what you mean, "Where are you trying to format from?" I have an install disk with windows xp on it. Is that what you mean?

[s_kinton]

I was just checking you weren't trying to do anything silly from inside windows

Are you saying that during POST, when the line 'Press any key to boot from CD/DVD...' comes up you cant do it? Or are you saying you dont see the above message?

I think you need to elaborate on exactly where the problem occurs

[Bulls]

That message never shows. I have to use "del" key to get anything but windows booting up from old format. I have tried a different cd drive to verify this one is working, and no change.

[s_kinton]

Are you absolutely sure you've got the optical drive set as the primary boot device in the BIOS?

Is the media in good condition? i.e. will it read the disk in windows and autorun

[Bulls]

I have set the optical drive in bios as primary boot device. I have used the disk mulitple times, and appears to be clean. I'm stimied.

[s_kinton]

Does the PC read the disk in windows? I had an issue recently where my new burner wouldnt read the DVD, so it wouldnt boot from it. It just loaded windows.

Boot into windows, insert the DVD and see if the PC recognises it. Thats the only sure way to know that the drive likes the media. That way you can rule out the drive and media altogether.