XP Won't Boot

[Ghostlady]

I think I tried that Drac and it looked weird. I'll give it another another try later when I get off of work and take a picture. I've thought of the possibility of the drives being bad but then I question, both? And at one point I actually got the XP reinstall to start but it got an error also and have never been able to get it to read that cd again. Let me get an picture of the start up after it has been unplugged for awhile. Wait, I just remembered I wrote it down.
Invalid configuration information
Please run setup program
Performing automatic IDE configuration

[Ghostlady]

I am wondering if using a USB keyboard and mouse can cause this issue? I think back then I used the old colored plug ins.

[draclvr]

The reason I mentioned an issue with the CD ROM drive is that if it won't read the CD it will switch to the HDD which would then cause the .dll error again.

[Ghostlady]

Yes, agreed. But it has two CD rom drives. I am thinking both wouldn't be bad. And I switched from one to the other to try the boot up.

[Ghostlady]

I think I may be on to something. Fast boot is set to yes. Googling - fast boot bypasses optical drives (cds). That would explain why I can't boot from the CD. Can't wait to try this...

[draclvr]

Oh, wow... I know about Fast Boot, but I didn't think that XP had it. Anxious to hear what happens!

[Ghostlady]

The fast boot change didn't make any difference. I don't know what else to try at this point.

[middletoe]

I never tried any of the "Boot CD's" from Amazon.
I did download, burn, and try the UBCD. (Universal Boot CD) from
https://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

[Ghostlady]

Does this work for XP?

[draclvr]

Although I still find it odd that both optical drives would have a problem, there is still some reason the BIOS sees the command to boot from an optical drive and then isn't and going straight to the HDD. I used to have a cleaning kit from my old CD drive. It had special disk you would spray a cleaner on and put it in the drive - it was supposed to clean the heads. Possibility since the computer is so old the heads aren't reading the disk?

[Ghostlady]

That's a big possibility. The inside of the machine was loaded with dust. We vacuumed it out but the disk drives we had to wait until the machine was turned back on and then we sprayed canned air.

[Ghostlady]

Does anyone have one of those old floppy disks that they can put the boot.ini on it and mail it to me?

[draclvr]

Sorry, got rid of them a long time ago!

[Ghostlady]

I just got rid of mine 2 months ago.

[Ghostlady]

I just got rid of mine 2 months ago.