Okay, I have formatted the hard drive so that there is no OS on my computer. I want to install Win Xp but when I put the CD into the drive all that appears is a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of the screen.

So I went into BIOS to make sure that the CD ROM is being brough up first and it is but still it does the same. I know the CD works and the drive work but for some reason it wont load up.

Then I decided to use the Win XP boot disks. But when I put the first one in it displays "Disk I/O Error"

I am not sure what this means can anyone help me?

Thanks
~John

Please bare with me here.

Are you placing the Windows XP cd in the cd drive and then rebooting your computer and when your computer begins to reboot it recognizes the cd and starts with messages on your monitor like

if you want to install windows from the cd press any key

you do however need to make sure in your bios that your cd drive is the first drive that your computer looks at for an operating system

No, when I place the cd into the drive then restart the computer all that the computer does is display a cursor in the upper left corner of the screen.

Also, yes I have made sure that BIOS is going to the CD ROM drive first to look for an OS when booting up.

Thanks

How did you reformat your drive. If you used a w98 boot disc or similar then it is possible that you did not make your partition a "logical" partition. Without doing so the drive is not able to be written to and you will need to use the same formating tools to reformat and make it a logical drive/partition

IN THE MATTERS OF STYLE,
swim with the current;
in matters of principle,
STAND LIKE A ROCK

first issue is not booting the xp cd.
second issue is the disk io error.

Since both relate to the disk controller I would suspect that perhaps this component on the mainboard is failing/failed.

If the cd is presently a slave drive of the hard drive, put it on the 2nd ide channel and see if it can boot the cd now.