Reinstallation of operating system troubleshooting...
 

Trying to help a friend fix his computer after a nasty infection of multiple viruses/trojans. First problem, he has a dvd drive that isn't compatible with Vista, which is currently installed, but we're trying to go back to XP. The CD drive reads the XP cd perfectly fine.

I've tried to boot direct to the CD drive, but the computer seems to bypass and boot straight to windows. I also created a USB installation of XP and tried to boot to USB, and it by psases once again.

At a lose of how we can get a fresh install of XP on there if I can't boot to CD/USB.

Any thoughts?

Have you checked the BIOS boot priority settings?

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Yup, both times they have been set the appropriate boot priority.

It may prompt you to hit any key to boot from the cd, if you miss it, it may boot straight to windows again

Use a different optical drive.

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Tried two cd drives + A USB for installation, neither is detected. No prompt to boot from cd. Would the fact that it's a SATA HD have anything to do with it?

Just as a test, unplug your hard drive then boot the machine with the XP cd in the drive.

If it then tries to boot from CD then something's fucked with your boot priority.

If it doesn't then something's fucked with your XP cd.

depending on the Bios, press the ECS key or F8 to get into the boot sequence menu.. then select the drive. this manually overrides the bios boot up

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As stated in all my posts, I've already tried that. We just tried unplugging the HD well having the CD drive as the main boot priority and it stated "Forced network boot attempt failed"

Then your CD could be fucked. Is this a legit, factory made copy of windows? If not, then it could be that whoever copied your CD didn't copy the boot information properly.

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It's just an ISO burnt, the computer has Vista on there, but I have a Legit XP key, so not to sure how I could go about getting a legit XP disk?

i didnt say to set it in the bios.. but oh wells...

unplug your network card and then try again..

Does the USB drive have the correct boot sector on it?

Download .hirens boot cd and format the drive and then try a reinstall.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd