System spec : 2800+ XP CPU Asrock Mobo K7VT4A+(VIAkT400A chipset)FSB 333mhz 80G Excelstor HD 7200rpm 256 DDR PC2700 Ok heres the problem, Firstly i changed the boot up sequence in the bios to boot form cd rom. Then i put the windows xp cd in to the drive and boot it up. Everything runs fine, the pc boots up frm the cd rom and goes in to windows xp setup. I partition the HD and format it in ntfs ( quick ) then windows xp setup copies the install files to the HD as usual in every windows xp. It then restarts the pc automatically and boots up again. This time i leave it to boot up normally and go into normal windows setup ( 49mins remaining and all the garbage propaganda it tells you how good windows is) But after the windows xp loading screen appears i get a blue screen with the error message : Stop : c000021 unknown hard error \ systemroot \ system 32 \ ntdll.dll Restart the pc and same thing happens all the time, tried many installations and complete new formats and same error message occurs. Tried different windows xp disc and i still get the same message. This belives me to think that it coudld be a hardware problem. But the pc is booting up fine and im in the windows setup menu so i wouldn't have thought that the ram / HD / gfx card are faulty. Ive searched for this problem but no1 seems to have this problem when installing xp. If anyone could help id be most grateful. Thnx haddock

If it's a virgin drive then do the long version of the format. That allows it to see bad sectors and lets it deal with them. If you do the quick format it doesn't look for them and then they show up later on. I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid...

See if this helps. --http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000465.htm Please post back within 24 hours or I will delete the post from my follow up list. Thanks.

kool thnx, but ive tried that as wekk from some1 else's reply on another forum any other ideas ?????