ANY bootdisk or Windows software CD dont work.

Hi IM new to the board and I have a serious problem.

I was installing a new version of Windows and somewhere in the install process where it ask to install or delete an existing partition... there was 1 partition in the list and 3 unknowns. I inadvertently delete one of the unknown partition..then the install process hung. I rebooted but my old windows wont load. I then try to use a DOS boot disk...no go. I also tried Win98, W2K bootdisks, same thing. It only go so far as seeing "starting Windows" on the bottom screen. Windows or the boot disk wont load at all. Any ideas?

hmm.... sounds to me that maybe you have corrupted the NT bootloader, what version of windows did you previously have installed? because as a general rule, you should always install older versions of any given OS before installing newer ones... what kind of error do you get while booting?

a few weeks ago I accidentally installed win2k after winXP..... man! that screwed thaings up a lot, every time I tried to boot to winXP I would get an error saying somthing like (%windows%/system/drivers/systemd is missing or corrupt) I had to go back and copy the NT bootloader files from the XP install CD through the recovery console..... but thats just my opinion on the matter, if this is the case you will need to boot to a winXP CD and open the recovery console and navigate to the i386 folder and copy the files NTDLR and NTdetect.com to your windows XP partition... hope it helps!

Thanks freakyp for your post.

Yeah you may be correct that I screwed up the bootload.
What Im seeing was 'Starting Windows...." then it stops.

I tried dos,win98,w2k bootdisks and software cds...same message.

I may have to take out the hd and reformat it on another computer?

hmm.... that is what happend to me, it would say "starting windows" then lockup, I guess you could reformat if you really want but if you have anything you really want on the hard drive you might just want to try to reapair the bootloader, but either way I wish you goodluck!

I would agree with Freakyp. Repairing the bootloader is going to be much easier (too me) than taking out the HD and then just wiping it.
I would try that.
GL

How do you repair a bootloader? I tried to use the W2K cd and do a manual repair but it goes so far to 'Setup is starting Windows 2000' then it stopped

There is a system recovery disk windows xp boot disk

It's a five year old post nowwzh