I was running xp sp3. Then I foolishly used partition magic to consolidate drives. After doing so I wiped everything since I could not access any partitions or data. I inserted boot cd but can only get to dos prompt. I tried runnint winnt from cd but get out of memory error. I created a partition using fdisk and put entier i386 folder there. Tried running winnt from there but received the out of memory error again. My c: drive shows 2047Mb status a, pri dos, fat16b (bigdos >32 Mb). This is a laptop with a gb of ram and 100 gb hard drive. Don't know why it only shows 5977 Mb free space. Can't install any xp os. Any advice is appreciated. Thanks.

XP has no DOS Prompt, has no MS-DOS. Boot off the XP CD and follow the instructions to install during install you can create partitions. FYI WINNT needs to be run from pure MS-DOS, not XP Command Prompt...

Thanks for the follow up and sorry for not being clear. I have no OS whatsoever. I have used a bootable cd that starts a program called Dr-DOS and have been trying to install WINNT from the other files I have placed on that cd (without the DR-DOS I get an error message that says "cannot load DOS). I cannot boot off the XP CD (even though in the BIOS boot menu the cd-drive is listed first). Still need help. Thanks!

What kind of XP CD is it? "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

I have tried an xp sp3 and an xp home.

OEM? Recovery? Retail? You need to be more specific. "So won’t you give this man his wings What a shame To have to beg you to see We’re not all the same What a shame" - Shinedown

Sorry about not being more specific. I was using an oem disc but it couldn't read it for some reason. I was able to make an iso image of it and burned it to a cd. It is now installing. Thank you all for your help. This forum is a lifesaver!