I wanted to wipe my entire hard drive on my old Dimension 8400 that contained windows xp on it and reinstall it with windows vista, which i have the cd for. however, when i did so, each time i try loading up the computer, it keeps giving me a "windows cannot start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. could not read from the selected boot disk. check both path and disk hardware." what should I do and how can I fix this problem

This might be caused by hard-drive failure. You should run hard drive test from BIOS to make sure hard drive is ok. You can access BIOS by pressing F2 during start up, from there start hard disk self test and wait for it to complete.

If hard drive is ok after test, insert in your original Windows installation media and reinstall OS.

The diags code was a failed response from the floppy drive. Most system didn't ship with one.

Boot to the XP CD, go to recovery console, run bootcfg /rebuild

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184

Here's what I would do. Download and burn any Linux disk. Install Linux and delete all partitions while doing so. After that, initiate the Windows XP installation and see if that works.

This will take care of two things:

If you can install Linux, then the hard drive is good and the partition that was previously on there will be deleted (I suspect the partition is locked which can be caused by a virus or the software used to scrub hard drive).

Check your CDs for Windows (for scratches) or it could be your actual CD drive is out (laser) which would make the installation fail. If the CDrom cannot read the disk, it locks up like that during installation...even if it read before.

You need to copy the restore partitions to a cd for back up.the wipe the drive using drivescrubber.also have a start up disc for back up.wiping the drive from back to front should keep the basic files for dos.its easy and there is a free version.

You don't need a recovery cd (or any other cd) to wipe the hard drive. Boot to a command prompt and type "format c:"

Reinstalling your operating system is the only time you need a recovery cd. If you have no way to reinstall your operating system, don't wipe the hard drive.

Install the XP Pro first, install the necessary drivers etc. Then after that load the other disk for windows XP Home install it choose the drive to install the OS, install the necessary drivers etc. you will see two operating system while going to boot section of the computer.

Sounds to me like the hard drive is bad.Download some testsoftware that does not require windows and test it. 

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/

Do it this way, go into bios and check "boot from disk" put your disk with Operating system in the drive, and restart, you will get some choices here you click on install, then it will ask you if you want to format, do a quick format, NTFS. it will format "wipe out " the old stuff, and begin reinstalling the new operating, dont try and save anything as you will just be dragging the ols problems along with you. Get your motherboard disks ready in case it asks for a raid driver or some Motherboard driver. and that is it , in around 45 minutes you will be done, you will need the serial numbers from your copy of windows. Have fun, when done just downlosd the updates, have fun Gym

Software errors can be caused by a variety of problems. Depending on your Operating System (Windows 200, XP, Vista) you should troubleshoot different things...can you copy down and post here some of the error messages/numbers?

However, it sounds like you may need to reinstall Outlook. Back up any .OST or .PST files (search for them on your hard drive) and uninstall/reinstall Outlook.

You cannot uninstall Windows Vista, but you can reinstall your previous operating system, which then replaces Windows Vista. To reinstall your old operating system, you must have the original installation disc. Back up your programs and files, insert the installation disc into your computer, and then reinstall the old operating system. To regain the hard disk space used by Windows Vista, reformat the disk during the reinstallation process. After reinstalling your previous operating system, reinstall your programs and files.