I recently purchased an HP M9250f desktop quad core 2.66 4gig ram 2x sata 500 gig hard drives one with Vista the other is empty. I want to retrieve my old files that are on a internal 300 gig serial ata HD, which I put inside of an extenral Hard-drive enclosure. I tried to connect the hard drive internally but Vista wanted me to format the drive. So I figured an external enclosure might solve the problem. Not so. I want to install windows xp and format the vista partition but I am having problems with the cd rom. When I try to boot up to start the windows xp 64 bit installation the pc will not boot to the cd rom. I have made all the necessary changes in the bios to make the cd-rom the 1st priority.
To make the story a little stranger I have an Old windows xp service pack 1 cd that loads when I put it in the cd tray. The installation gets to a certain point and hangs repeateadly with the blue screen of death. I have an ISO of the xp 64 bit disc are there any modifications I can make to the setup or autorun files to increase the chance the windows xp 64 bit cd will boot up. Can anybody recommend any settings or solutions to this problem.

Thank you for any replies!

Replace cables, check connections, check power supply to all devices, use diags to test cd and ide/sata devices.

"Best Practices", Event viewer, host file, perfmon, antivirus, anti-spyware, Live CD's, backups, are in my top 10

I checked all connections everything is connected properly, the dvd-rom drive works fine it reads and burns cd's no problem.I have an old windows xp sp1 disc that does a partial install through the F6 process but I receive an error when i tries to locate the 2x500gig sata drives. I have no explanation as to why the cd-rom will load to one disc but not another. I have 2 versions of windows xp I own from previous computer purchases and it will not load to them.

Thanks for any follow up

Check the memories(RAM) with a tool like memtest.Otherwise you can try something risky like to format the disk kai try to recover your files with the EasyRecovery Tool.The disk contains only files or operating system?

Evolving to achieve the perfection...