What do these two cpu's need before I give them away?

I just opened and closed the cd tray, the drive spun and the Windows cd started off with the green rolling hills background picture and went into tutorial mode with why Windows XP is so great and the improvements...........................

 

OK, I saw the prompt at the bottom of the screen for about 2-3 seconds, I pressed "y" a few times, then hit enter a few times and nothing happened. The computer may a beebing sound for every button I hit. What's that about?

 

if it's beeping then it accepted your first key press.....

give it a few minutes to do it's thing....

 

When I hit the "y" key once, the screen goes away 2 seconds later and loads Windows. Should I drop the tower at a cpu store?

 

I am at a loss without being there - sorry

Maybe others on this forum can jump in

Just curious not that it should make a difference but did you power the PC down or just reboot ..try puttting CD in reader and power down and then up - like I said it shouldn't make a difference but .....

 

Yeah I tried that too. I should be getting a call in a few minutes, after that I may just drop it off a few streets over at a place called Mystery Byte, a repair store.

 

What did the prompt say? There should be something like "Press any key to start from CD....".


As to Linux: It really has come a long way. I'm using Linux mainly now, Windows only for games. The current distributions of Ubuntu for example are much easier to use and maintain than Vista. Perfect hardware support, didn't have a single crash in 1.5 years now (try that with Windows!!), fast as hell and beautiful to look at. It isn't a geek-only system nowadays anymore - give it a try!

 

Yep, but if there was anything valuable on those drives they can be fetched later by a computer nerd. Something you don't want if your selling it. Best to zero out all the sectors. This program can do it nicely. Then you can reinstall Windows

http://www.killdisk.com/features.htm

 

I may look into it for one of my computers but this one is being given away, so I'll keep it simple. Thanks for the info.

The prompt says something like "Boot from ATABI cd" or something similar but I googled a few pictures and I'm supposed to see "press any key to boot from cd" below the first line but it isn't there.

 

I still can't boot from a cd, so I would still be treading water.

 

Well, you said the computers are going to a 13 and 15 year old.
(Never set up a wireless network if you live near a school. )

Try another bootable CD. Maybe your XP CD doesn't have a boot sector, and is intended to work with a floppy.

Is this a CD that was made by a "backup program" that came with the computer?

Or your CD drive may be an older type that isn't intended to be used for booting.
(Is this an XP disk from a newer computer than the one you're trying to boot it on?)

Heck, a Linux "live CD" might be a check of your CD booting capability.
(And it can be handy, for using Linux tools to fix a corrupted windoze computer.)

 

Scoundrels, these children are not good sir! This cd came with the computer, it's about 4 years old I think but may be a little older, I can't remember the exact date. So, no it's not a disc I made my self and it's not burnt. Perhaps instead of trying to fix the computer myself, I should have hung around an elementary school looking for "Wizards"? Or maybe set up a wireless router and waited 5 minutes? My problems could be solved!

I'll try another bottable cd.

P.S. Would the cd say "bootable" on it, or any other kind of wording? This one just says Windows XP Experience the Excitement with a blue background.

 

Uh OH! I ran a Windows Millennium DVD that states "Run Setup.exe from the cd/dvd prompt", I'll assume that means it's a bootable cd and I'm totally SCREWED! It's over, dust bin time for this machine, there's no goin' back and no sleep tonight! What a way to start off a new year!

Or perhaps I could drop it off tomorrow to someone who actually knows how to properly operate a computer....

 

I uninstalled the cd drive, then rebooted my computer, then loaded the drivers {thinking it was a software issue}, then tried to boot from the cd again, no go. In a few hours I'll bang by that computer store for the formatting and the gig of RAM.

Thanks for all of the input fellas!