I really need some help.

[kramboid]

This is my story:

On my Dell XPS 400 with Windows MCE, I found out that audio recording software like ProTools is not compatible with MCE. So I got a copy of XP professional, tried to install it, and it had major errors, only allowing me to logon via safe-mode. I tried several times to get Professional to load but to no avail, nothing would work at all. Then, after many tries, Windows setup would tell me that I have no hard drive in my computer, when obviously I do. So I created a linux boot disk from my laptop and installed Ubuntu on my computer so I could at least use this machine. Now I have acquired a different copy of XP but when I boot with the CD it still won't detect my hard drive. I think it is from the file system linux uses and I am not familiar with linux one bit and I have no idea how to format my hard drive with linux. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[Raffaz]

Can you see the partitions when you use the XP CD? If not then goto your HDD manufacturers website and download their diagnostic tools, you normally have an option to do a low level format of the drive, this will wipe it completely, then you will be to use your XP CD to format the drive and install the OS.

 

[kramboid]

Well, I've tried wiping my hard drive, but when I load up the windows XP cd, everything goes fine and dandy until it asks me to either proceed with installation (enter), quit installation (f3), or some other choice. I press enter and the next screen says, "Windows cannot locate a hard disk drive, please make sure all connections are good blah blah blah" and it forces me to reboot.

I'll try downloading my hard drive manufacturer's software though, hopefully that will work.