invalid system disk error, help nee

[Celia1]

I have some excess computers after closing an office and am putting some machines together for family. I have an old vectra vl400 that the harddrive was wiped clean. I partitioned and then formatted. I downloaded the 6 disks for winxp boot load. I completed that fine and want to load winxp on the machine. The xp installation is on a dvd-r disc. It won't load on the vectra even after I change the bios sequence. I get an error that says invalid system disk replace the disk, and then press any key. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[misson]

I downloaded the 6 disks for winxp boot load.

What to you mean "the" 6 disks? An XP install disk fits on a CD, though recovery discs often fill 6 CDs. By "downloaded", do you mean you burned the contents of 6 disks to a DVD, or do you mean you downloaded disc images from a server?

I completed that fine and want to load winxp on the machine. The xp installation is on a dvd-r disc. It won't load on the vectra even after I change the bios sequence. I get an error that says invalid system disk replace the disk, and then press any key. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

If you've properly configured the BIOS to boot off of the DVD drive, then the DVD isn't bootable (though Nero InfoTool can tell you this for certain). Note that the "invalid system disk" error is from the computer trying to boot off of the hard drive, not the DVD. To use Nero InfoTool, d/l it to a working computer. Insert the DVD and run Nero InfoTool (it will take a bit to gather information), then go to the "Disc" tab. The "Filesystem" field will say "(bootable)" if the disc is bootable.

What did you use to create the DVD? You'll probably need to burn a new, bootable copy. If you need tools, XCDRoast might work. If you need instructions, google how to make a bootable DVD.

[leafypiggy]

Or, the old computer is running a fat32 storage system, and therefore can't handle the DVD. Not completely sure, haven't installed XP in a while.

I do know that my recovery CDs were a set of 13.

Also, this belongs in "Computers and Technology"

[Smith6612]

To me, it sounds like you're trying to restore an image of the Windows XP Installation. Personally, it sounds like a bad disk to me, but if the drive is formatted with FAT32, give it a reformat with NTFS.

[misson]

The filesystem on the hard drive won't affect whether or not the DVD boots. The XP installer gives you the choice of formatting the HD with NTFS, so you don't need to format the HD ahead of time. You can install XP on a FAT32 drive (if you really wanted to), though NTFS is generally better.