[Mle4me]

Hey guys, I got a Compaq desktop P.C. that will not boot from the XP home edition disk. Here's what happens. I put in the CD and restart the comp. Then it displays "Press any key to boot from CD..." The the timing dialog starts and .... appears after the word CD. At this point if you press a keyboard key it will do one of two things

1) the timer will stop at "from CD..." and it will not boot from disk

2) the timer will not stop and the comp will boot as normal

I'm using a USB keyboard for this, but I've tried plugging it in to the PS/2 and I get similarly dismal results. Any suggestions or workarounds I could try would be greatly appreciated .

[Hybr!d]

USB keyboard will not work in DOS.

For what reason are you wanting to boot of the XP CD?

[Mle4me]

Ok, point taken. I've used a PS/2 to USB converter to plug the keyboard to the PS/2 keyboard slot. Same problem. Do I have any takers for this stuff?

My purpose now for doing this is doing a clean install of XP. Wipe all the old stuff off and start from new.

[afireinside5jc]

I have had problems with usb devices during the post phase. Pay attention to your keyboard. Dose it light up at all? If you don't get any response during boot but it lights up when windows starts then id find a regular ps2 keyboard. I had the same problem when I wanted to reinstall xp. I am also using a cheap $10 usb keyboard so that might be why it was lagging during the count down.

[Mle4me]

Yeah, it'll light up sometimes and sometimes it won't. When it does light up, I'll press a key and the 'boot from disk' dialogue will freeze. This drives me nuts...