Anyone know what exactly is going on here? o_O

[dootthaloop]

Here's the deal, bought a brand new computer, maxed out as much as I could afford, eager to try it. But here's the problem: It has Vista. Fortunately I had an XP disc, so, I shrunk the C: partition and made an L: partition half the size of the hard drive. So here, I'm assuming Vista is on the C: drive, leaving L: for me to put XP on. Now, I install XP on the L: partition, then the computer goes to reboot, and I get this screen, and it won't go away. Kinda funny, cause I've installed OS's before and I've never had a 'press any key' screen to have funny colored symbols on it like this:

Spoiler

http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/1059/weirdwin2gp4.jpg[/img]

http://img242.imageshack.us/img242/7889 ... in1cs3.jpg[/img]

Now then... I go to reboot the PC manually, hoping that was just something random. Nope, it won't boot into ANY Windows whatsoever, XP or Vista, even though both should be installed on the PC now. What I get instead, is a black screen with a blinking white cursor on it. Pressing various keys does nothing. I'm at a loss... now, I'm pretty good as a computer user, so is there a way I can fix this and [preferably] get XP to work? I've already tried this install 2 or 3 times, same result. I have no idea what to do...

 

[eternal_magus]

Vista has some weird boot thingy that doesn't play nice with dual booting if I remember correctly you have to set some special thing up using GRUB (linux's boot thingy) to get it to work. I don't know the specifics..

 

[Diaforetikos]

Is there a CD in any of your drives. Very simple but easily overlooked.

 

[___]

Well, removing the cd will get rid of that message but the dual-boot situation you can't fix as easily. When you installed Windows XP, it messed with your MBR, and that makes Vista pukey and ultimately results in nothing booting correctly. Grub using chainloader is one option. You should be able to Google a guide to handle that.

 

[neomatrixjc]

Vista uses a boot loader to start up, if you are to install xp over vista then u need to  power on and boot from your xp cd or dvd by going in to your BIOS and changing your Boot Options

When it says Press any Key to boot from cd is asking you what to boot, so you may be lucky enough to enter your bios and change your boot settings, and make sure when u boot not to have a cd or dvd in your drive.

I use vista ultimate and i love it but if you wish to use xp, it would be best to perform a clean install and go from there.

any questions just ask me

anyways hope this helps