Virus attacked pc. I wiped the hard drive then turned the computer off before formatting,STUPID now it won't pick up the XP Pro disk to install it what have I done and how do I fix it? please help

Sounds like you may have purchased a "Windows 7 upgrade" (whatever version Home/Pro,) version....

now that win7 is on it, you can boot from the CD, choose the "repair my computer" option, then choose the Advanced Startup repair options....and you can use the command window to re-format, or delete the partition and and re-format the drive....then start-over with a clean disk.

article to read on getting it to 'authenticate' if you DID buy Upgrade media and you want to do a clean install, (normally it won't without some tweaking.)
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/howtos/how_use_your_windows_7_upgrade_disk_fresh_pc

Tallon41

The problem is that XPinstallation CD does not have a SATA driver, unless you have a SATA drive on adisk etc. and can install the driver when XP asks for a hard drive driver then,XP cannot detect the hard disk and therefore won't install XP. The FIX. Go into the BIOS anddisable the SATA drive (enable IDE emulation), this will make XP think it is aIDE/PATA hard disk. Then you can install XP normally. When Windows hasbeen installed then install all the device drivers (including the SATA driver),then shut down and boot up and got into the BIOS and enable the SATA drive.

Place your Windows System disk in the DVD drive and when the menu appears select "replace system" and let it format the drive.
You could of course install an antivirus anti malware programme and attempt to recover your disk.
Follow these links:

http://www.symantec.com/index.jsp
http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/

The Microsoft one is free.

You probably need an OEM version of XP...not that IBM version. If you buy an OEM version, you can use it many computers. A real XP disc will partition, format, and delete partitions on any functioning Hard drive. Don't buy a recovery disc, please. That just sounds WRONG.

A cheaper solution might be a new Hard Drive...but I don't trust your IBM version of XP.

its not a virus as when you format your hard drive it would wipe it out ... how many hard drive do you have ? if you have 2 install a new instalation to the good hard drive and you should get to the part of xp that says do you want to format the partition on this hard drive by pressing ( f ) do this and when your pc has finished re-installing you can click on my computer in your start menu then right click on the bad hard drive and run a full format from there ...

hope this helps ... jedi-inc ....

No, you need to go into your computer's BIOS and set the ahcp mode to IDE. Then windows xp will see it just fine.

Please take a moment to rate as fixya. Thanks!

Hi.. first of all when ur system gets attacked by virus or threats its difficult to perform delete operations. The only best way is to format ur system with the help of XP cd. This XP cd will reboot ur operating system so that all viruses and threats available in ur C drive will get deleted... So the only option is to re install ur OS with XP cd...

thank u

Hi,
Is your bios set to boot to the CD first?

You can download the 'windows xp setup disks' if you have a floppy drive on that computer
from here
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=E8FE6868-6E4F-471C-B455-BD5AFEE126D8&displaylang=en

or you can install an older version of windows that WILL run from DOS like win98, or winme, and then install your XP afterwards.

I hope this solves your problem, thank you, good luck.

IF you have the XP installation CD you can easily do that, Just set your BIOS to boot from the CDrom then put the XP CD on your CD drive then restart the computer , so your computer will automatically boot from the XP installation CD then on that process you will have an option to format the entire hard drive that you have using the XP CD installation, then just let the installation finish...

Insert the winxp disk and boot from that, when prompted hit any key to boot from cd.

Win xp will start to install choose to delete the partition, confirm delete.

then press enter to install to that unallocated partition, choose format to NTFS.

Follow the prompts and it has formated the hard drive and will install XP.