Hello Paul, No, unfortunately its not an OEM CD. Darragh Ó Héiligh Web development, O/S and Application technical support. Website: http://www.digitaldarragh.com -----Original Message----- From: vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Lists Sent: 18 June 2006 11:44 To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [vicsireland] Re: problem installing windows XP Hi, Is the windows xp cd a full version or a CD which came with another computer. If this is the case then it will not install itself onto a hard drive that contains other particians and so you will need to try it out on a clean hard drive. Some drives as well as having a visible partician on them can also have invisible particians. Trying to use a win xp CD that came with another computer or that is O-E-M will more often than not fail on such a configuration as you describe. Paul. -----Original Message----- From: vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:vicsireland-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Darragh Sent: 16 June 2006 23:36 To: vicsireland@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [vicsireland] problem installing windows XP Hello, I am attempting to install windows XP Professional SP2 on this machine. It?s not the first time I've had to do it but it?s the first time I've encountered this problem. After pressing enter to start the installation at boot up it shows the next screen but will not go any further. I've narrowed the problem down to the main hard drive. It?s a Maxter IDE 250GB drive with Linux working happily on it at the moment so I can reasonably confidently say that it?s not dead. I've had someone look at the configuration jumper and it is as I expected set at primary master. The IDE Cable configuration is also not the problem. I've tried checking to see if it will default to the primary master configuration without the jumper but that doesn't work strangely enough. Am I imagining that that use to work once upon a time? The installation does work with another maxter drive that is about 150 GB but I don't want to use that as it is used for testing. I'm perplexed. What the hell could be causing the problem. I should probably mention that this over sized pile of useless metal has never worked as I'd have liked so I'm really nearing the end of my patients with it. Just to note as well, before I tried the hard drives, I removed the LAN and wireless network card, the USB Sound Blaster, the internal PCI sound card, one of the CDRW's and I tried switching the RAM. The only parts I haven't tested are the video card and the processor. I've also reset the bios to falesafe and optimal defaults and tried redetecting the hard drives. Please Please Please help. Or, tell me where I can dump the thing. I wouldn't offer it to anyone as it really is jinxed. I thought of salvaging parts out of it but because there have been so many issues I'm not even sure what parts are causing the problems. It?s only just over a year old! Sorry for the rant. Darragh Ó Héiligh Web development, O/S and Application technical support. Website: http://www.digitaldarragh.com