[Benji]

i recently bought a computer froma friend which he had dual booted with XP and Linux. he unistalled xp and left linux on it . so i reformatted the drives and and attempted to install xp. I went through the process of installing Pro and once installed and trying to boot off the HD it would not start up it would load the BIOS but then on attempting to boot it gives a message "item pool data ..." and does nothing please help?

[Hybr!d]

Did XP install 100% with no errors?

[Benji]

installed fine

[Hybr!d]

Does it boot in safe mode?

[Benji]

it give me the option of booting in safe mode

[Hybr!d]

And does it boot?

[Benji]

my mistake it doesnt give me the option . typo

[Jonathon28]

I would try re-formatting and re-installing XP. Do a full format not a quick one.

Also, is it a IDE or SATA hard drive? You sometimes have to install the drivers for SATA drives at XP installation where it promtps you to push F6 to install drivers. However, I have SATA drives and don't have to enter drivers.

Check also that the boot order in the BIOS is set correctly. Usually 1st: Floppy 2nd: HDD 3rd: CD/DVD ROM.

But I think a full format should fix it.

By the way - to get to the boot options menu to access Safe Mode. Repeatidly press Shift or F8.

[philthomas]

Whaen you say you formatted the drive, did you remove the Linux partition and the XP partition and then create one large partition, before formatting ?

[Jonathon28]

That's a good point there Phill. It never crossed my mind about the two partitions.