Let's say you had a wiped hard drive with no OS and you put your xp cd in but get a "can't find dos" error. So you put in a dr-dos bootable xp cd in and can get to the dos prompt. You then try to run WINNT from i/386 and you get the "Setup needs to know where the XP files are located" message. You tell it where to look but then get the "System out of Memory issue". Now you put the entire i386 folder on your hard drive and try to run it from there but get the same "Memory" error. What would you do from here. Any and all assistance is appreciated.

How did you get the "can't find dos" error? You should be able to install WinXP directly from the WinXP CD without any of that other stuff. BTW, there is no DOS in WinXP. When in the OS you can get a Command prompt. That is not the same thing as a DOS prompt. Boot into the BIOS screens (setup) and set the boot order with the CD drive before the hard drive. Then boot with the WinXP CD in the CD drive. Watch the screens for a prompt to hit any key to boot from CD. Just tap the space bar at that time and the setup should start.

Thanks for the help. Here's the situation. I can put the XP cd in any other computer and it works fine. I put it in my laptop (after ensuring that the bios is reading from the cd first) and get the following message "Cannot read DOS! Any key to retry". So I created another cd that was made bootable with all the same info on it. Now when it boots it opens to an [DR-DOS]a:> dos prompt. I can view the DIR and see the folders and data but when I try to run the WINNT I get the out of memory error. More advice is appreciated!

DOS has limits on the amount of mamory it can access. Basically the first 640KB of RAM unless more has been configured. Instead of trying to re-invent the wheel I suggest you figure out what is going on with the laptop. Seeing as there is no DOS on the WinXP CD, unless you have cobbled the disk structure, I think you may be reading something off the hard drive. What is/was on the hard drive? When you attempt to boot from the WinXP CD do you see a prompt to hit any key to boot from the CD? If you don't then either the boot order is wrong or there is a problem with the WinXP CD. Because you are able to boot to a different CD then the issue points to your WinXP CD as the problem. Try the WinXP CD in a different computer to see if you can boot to it then.

Again, thanks for your help. The hard drive has been erased but I did an FDISK to create a partition c: drive. It shows 2047 mb has a status of a and is pri dos, fat 16b (bigdos >32 mb) When I boot from the orignal xp cd it says "Cannot read DOS! Any key to retry". I cannot run setup.exe becuase that can't be done in dos. So I tried to run the winnt file but too low memory. The winxp cd boots fine in 2 other computers when it is put in.

You should stick with your original post here: http://www.computing.net/answers/wi... double-posting is against the rules of this site, and both posts may be removed. "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 that, message removed.