I wiped my hard drive using kill disk. I have a Windows XP home disc to install the operating system, but when I boot the computer, I get the "Error loading operating system" message and it won't recognize the Windows XP disc. HELP!

Hi is the bios detecting the hard drive? Are you able to open the laptop and chek if the hard drive is correctly plugged into mother board

Which version of xp are you trying to install 32 or 64 bit ?

Your ability to install a second operating system on your Windows 7 system hinges on one thing: partitions. If your computer has only one partition, you can't dual-boot your system without erasing all information on your computer. Two hard drives, or two partitions, enables you to dual boot. Check this information first, before proceeding.

Click "Start" and type "disk management" into the search bar. Click on "Create and format hard disk partitions" in the list of programs to open "Disk Management." Look at the list of partitions and available drives. The information here will be different on every computer. "C" is your primary hard drive and active operating system partition, and this drive contains your Windows 7 installation. You can't install Windows XP here without formatting the system. Check for secondary drives and partitions in Disk Management. Your system may have a "D" or "E" drive. Some computer manufacturers create a hidden partition with recovery software: don't remove this partition. If you have a secondary partition called "D" with more than 2GB of free space, you can install Windows XP here. b> Installing XP b> Insert the Windows XP Setup disc into your CD or DVD drive and close any windows that appear. Shut down your computer with the disc in the drive. Turn the computer on and look for a message saying "press any key to book from CD." Press any key on your keyboard when this message appears. Most computers are configured to look to the CD or DVD drive first, before booting to the operating system. If your system doesn't recognize the disc, you will have to enter your BIOS and change the boot order. Look to your manual for information on changing the boot order. Press "Enter" on the "Welcome to Setup" screen to load the Windows XP setup program. Read the license agreement and press "F8" to accept. Windows will detect that an operating system is already installed on your primary partition and present a list of other partitions to install XP. Use the arrow keys to select your secondary partition ("D") and press "Enter" to confirm that you want to install XP here. Then choose what to do with the partition: leave the file system intact or format the partition using FAT32 or NTFS. Windows XP supports both file systems, but requires NTFS on partitions larger than 32GB. You don't need to format the drive to install XP. Follow the prompts on screen to enter your personal information, serial number, and date and time. The setup program copies files to your PC and reboots -- don't press a key to boot to the CD. When you have to operating systems installed, a DOS screen appears asking you to choose an OS; press the down arrow key to highlight Windows XP and press enter to complete the setup. You will have to choose this every time to boot into XP, otherwise your computer will boot to Windows 7 by default. Hope this helps.

b>

You have to install another operating system
Restart your computer during the boot process you will see on the screen to press a certain key to enter setup usually the Delete or F2 key

Press and hold that key during the boot up process to enter BIOS then using the arrow keys scroll down to advanced bios features press enter change your first boot device to cd press escape then press f10 to save to cmos to restart

Note this will erase you operating system you will have to have an operating system disk to load it onto you hard drive or create a partition to load another operating system

Note after you have loaded the operating system you should go back and change the first boot device to failsafe or optimised defaults after windows has loaded

your computer will automatically restart it might restart 2 times one to finish the installation
the next will be because the operating system is loaded and will boot from your cd

or
Formatting a hard drive to erase its contents does not mean the files are necessarily gone forever. Using data-recovery software, someone still could retrieve sensitive data and files from your hard drive even after you've formatted it. Instead of simply formatting your hard drive, use disc-cleaning software to permanently erase its contents. Disc-cleaning programs work by repeatedly overwriting the contents of a hard drive with random data patterns, making it virtually impossible to recover the original files. Download and install the freeware program Active@ KillDisk (see Below). http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm Click the Windows "Start" button and select KillDisk from the "All Programs" list. Click the check box next to the hard drive you want to erase in the "System Local Disks" menu. Press the "Kill" button. Select the erasing method you want to use from the "Erase Method" drop-down menu. Active@ recommends using the "US DoD 5220.22-M" method. Click "Start" to begin erasing the hard drive. Download and install the freeware program Hard Drive Eraser (see Below). http://www.harddriveeraser.org/ Click the Windows "Start" button and select Hard Drive Eraser from the "All Programs" list. Check the radio button next to the hard drive you want to erase under "Select Drive to Erase." Select the erasing method you want to use from the "Shredding Scheme" drop-down menu. The developers of Hard Drive Eraser recommend "DoD 5220-22 M" Press the "Start" button to begin erasing the hard drive. Download and install Iolo DriverScrubber (see Below). Click the "Windows" Start button, "All http://www.iolo.com/ds/3/ Programs" and then the DriverScrubber program icon. Click "Wipe all contents of a drive," and then click "3.5-Inch Floppy Disk." Insert a blank floppy disk and click "Next." Restart your computer with the floppy disk still inserted. Your computer will boot directly to DriveScrubber. Press the down arrow on your keyboard to highlight the hard drive you want to format in the "Available Physical Drives" menu. Press the space bar to select the hard drive. Press "Enter" to continue. Press the down arrow to highlight "Seven Overwrites" in the "Available Data Wiping Methods" menu, and then press the space bar to select it. Press "Enter" to continue. Press "CTRL," "ALT," "Shift" and "W" at the same time to wipe the hard drive. Hope this helps.



b>

Hi Jeff,

I see you are having issue installing windows, getting an error the the Boot Manager is missing...

The windows Disc that you have is this a burnt copy? possible that the installation files on the Windows you have is incomplete.

But if I may ask before you tried installing this Windows what windows did you have on your computer?

Have you tried booting the disc directly from the CD drive instead of installing it from within windows.

Go into BIOS and change the boot configuration of you Computer make sure the the CD/DVD drive is selected as the primary boot option before the hard drive, once that is done restart your computer make sure that you Windows disc is in the cd/dvd drive, you should get a prompt on the upper left saying to boot from cd press any key - press Enter right away once you see that prompt this should boot from the disc for the installation to continue but if still it looks for the Boot Manager the copy of your installation disc maybe incomplete.

Also you can try to wipe clean you hard drive and try again again with the installation.

Are you trying to install this OS (Operating System) , or is it already installed on a hard drive?
If you are installing it, make sure you change the boot order to the optical drive (DVD drive). If it's already installed, was it installed with an OEM disk? If yes, then you might need a new Windows XP disc. This is because, when using an OEM disc, if you change the hard drive or motherboard, it doesn't really work.

Thank you for choosing Fixya.com

Yes you can install the Windows XP on P4X266.

Here could be five various steps you can go about.

• Method 1: Perform a clean install of Windows XP
  Use this method for a clean installation of Windows XP. A clean installation removes all data from your hard disk by repartitioning and reformatting your hard disk and reinstalling the operating system and programs to an empty (clean) hard disk.
• Method 2: Upgrade to Windows XP
  Use this method if you are upgrading to Windows XP from Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition, or Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional.
• Method 3: Install Windows XP to a new hard disk
  Use this method to install Windows XP to a new hard disk. This is typically done when a new hard disk is installed on your computer.
• Method 4: Install Windows XP to a new folder (parallel installation)
  Use this method to install Windows XP to a new folder (parallel installation) to either run two operating systems, or to access, repair, or retrieve data from a damaged disk.
• Method 5: Perform a multiple boot operation
  Use this method to install Windows XP as a separate operating system on your computer. This lets you install more than one operating system on your computer and select which operating system that you want to use every time that you start your computer.

To check the detailed information, check this Microsoft Knowledge Base Article.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316941

Hope this would help !!

Regard's
Anurag Shukla

1. The reason it says "error loading operating system" is because kill disk wiped the operating system from off your computer.
2. Now that you have the installation disk, you need to tell the computer to boot from it. For Dells, usually press F12 when the Dell logo appears, and it should bring up a boot menu. Select the optical drive and it should boot. If you do not see a boot menu, go into your computer's BIOS and tell it to look at the optical drive first when booting, then it will boot from the disk.

Install the XP Pro first, install the necessary drivers etc. Then after that load the other disk for windows XP Home install it choose the drive to install the OS, install the necessary drivers etc. you will see two operating system while going to boot section of the computer.

your operating system wasn't found because kill disk wipes your hard drive clean.
You have to re-install your operating system, all the drivers, and any programs that you might want in your computer.
Boot into the BIOS (tapping the delete key during initial boot-up should get you there, or follow any instructions on the bottom of your POST screen to get into "set-up") and make sure your DVD/CD drive is the first boot option, then put your operating system disc in the drive, and re-boot...the drive should read your CD, and boot from there

Activation is a form of copy protection, in which each copy of XP must be turned on by registering it with Microsoft. The copy of Windows XP is then uniquely associated with a particular computer, thus preventing pirating of the operating system by using the same disk to upgrade multiple machines.

Upon re-installation, the registration files were wiped too.
You can call microsoft anytime to reactivate your Windows XP.
Here is the number: 1-888-571-2048