no fixed disk present

i often use the win98se or windows millenium startup disk to get into dos with cd-rom access enabled. there are a few things though that confuse me.
a. sometimes when installing an xp on a computer either upgrade or clean install i get messages to the effect when attempting to run in the i386 folder winnt.exe 'program too big to fit in memory'
or b- the startup disk (even on a formated clean partition not made with third party software or with virus on it as it has been wiped clean) uses the c drive for the virtual ram drive as it can't find the actual c drive on the disk. If one tries to run fdisk one gets a message 'no fixed disk present' THE THING IS THAT:
if I use the recovery console or a erd application like erd commander 2000 booting from the cd using the eltorito spec - I can see the partitions and if they have data on them that is visible too.
THis leads to the final problem. There can be a valid boot.ini file and the mbr can be ok apperently however, after going through stage one of the install - accepting f8, choosing the partition to install the operating system, having the xp files copied to the hard drive and then rebooting, instead of continuing the installation, the computer boots from the cd rom and starts the install from the top checking the hardware etc and repeats this in a loop. Can anyone enlighten me>? THanks in advance.

justinwilshire2

 

mbr is designed completely differently for NT systems than for 9X systems. Using 9X tools to work with XP mbr is asking for disaster.

I strongly suggest for working with XP (either installs or repairs) you boot from the XP CD if the PC BIOS will allow that.

If not, an XP boot disk set is the next best option for hassle-free installs but I would worry about stuffing an OS this big and demanding on hardware old enough there is no BIOS option for booting from a CD.