Installing XP - Stuck in a Loop

I've been helping a friend whose installation of Win ME became corrupted. We decided to format the drive and install a fresh copy of XP.

installed XP on a freshly formatted drive but somehow some essential files didn't copy over correctly. I get to the preparation stage, I get an error, the computer re-starts and I go back through the process again.

I managed to get to get into DOS by digging out an old Win ME start up disk and when I type in Format C: it says that I won't run.

What I'd like to do is format the c drive and start again, but I can't. Any ideas?

Check to see if the hard drive is dead or is dying. If so it could be the cause of the problems.

Also check the cables on the hard disk, as well as CDROM/DVDROM while you are at it.

The third thing I would check is the install media that you are using. Perhaps the XP CD is flawed, scratched or damaged in some way.

I finally installed it.

I dug out my Windows ME bootup disk which got me into DOS. I then fdisked the c drive, deleted the non-dos partition, created a new partition and made it active.

I then formatted the c drive, put in th XP disk and hey presto!

Thanks for all the advice