Can't Install Windows (2k/xp) or boot

A few weeks ago I suddenly couldn't boot into windowsXP. It would just freeze before doing ANYTHING. Would not even get to where you could do safe startup. I've always run linux and i could use that just fine and still can.

After that I decided to reinstall windows, I keep stuff backed up so no big deal. Well after the initial blue screen installer gets done and it reboots to do the gui portion of the install it freezes at the same point, just black screen.

I though well hell i'll just format the entire harddrive and start from scratch... same deal! I can't install winxp or win2k! It just prints a bios error to screen saying it can't boot an OS. It boots from CD and floppy fine and i dont' think anythign is wrong with the harddrive since i can use LILO/GRUB and boot and use linux without any problem. Whats going on?

Does anyone have any ideas!?!? Thanks in advance..

 

When you boot from the install CD, can you get into the recovery console? If so, try running the fixboot command on the drive where the OS is loaded.

Otherwise, when you boot from the CD, at exactly what point does it hand and what is the complete error?

 

Fixboot and fixmbr did nothing. I took a win98 boot disk and fdisked and formatted the drive a few hours ago literally a dozen times and now suddenly everything is back to normal. Strange but resolved now. Thanks for your suggestion.