Help reformatting hard drive

[RichCsigs]

I'm running into a problem reformatting my hard drive.

I put the Windows XP disk into my laptop and turn it on.

It tells me to press a key to boot from the disk and I do.

It then says, "Setup is checking you hardware", then after a few minutes it says "NTDETECT failed" and then it will either reboot or crash.

Can anybody tell me what's going on or another way to reformat my hard drive?

 

[greymist]

It could be the NTDETECT.COM file on your CD is corrupt. Or the BIOS on your laptop might need to be set so the CD-ROM boots before the hard drive?

 

[RichCsigs]

I set the BIOS to boot from the CD Drive first so it's not that.
That would be teh suck if it was a bad file on the disk. Is there a way to make my own boot disk or do I need to harass the Gateway people for a new disk?

EDIT: My laptop doesn't have a floppy drive so it would have to be a boot CD.

 

[babomb]

I hate to say it, but the most likely problem is the file on the CD is corrupt.

If you're lucky, the CD's just smudged. If you're unlucky, it's scratched, and you need another CD.

You MAY be able to copy the good CD, suppling the ntdetect.com from your harddrive. BE sure to CD Writer software make the CD Bootable.

You could also try the instructions on this page to make a boot CD. (N.B.: I've never tried it.)

 

[XCorvis]

Are you using a real Windows XP Installation CD, or your "Gateway Restoration CD"?

Do you have a SATA, SCSI or RAID hard drive? If so, then the normal Windows XP CD will not boot your computer. You'll need an additional driver disk, which is a total PITA with a laptop.

If not, check the CD like babomp says. You might want to try updating the BIOS too.