Cannot install XP from CD

[jimting]

I have a Gateway Profile 6. Reinstall it to run CentOS 5 Linux a while back with no issue. I wanted to reinstall its OS back to XP today using CD. It asked to boot from CD. Followed by a quick flash of checking system hardware and that is when everything stopped. Black screen with no error message and no CD drive or HD activity; I don't see the typical blue DOS screen. Tried it several times using both XP CD and MSDN XP CD. Both resulted the same problem. The system still boots up fine running the CentOS Linux so it cannot be the hardware. Has anyone experienced or seen this problem? There is no error message so I don't even know where to start troubleshoot.

Thanks,
Jim

[idocinthebox]

First these machines have Two video processors, one in the chipset and one seperate card. You can try hooking a monitor to the other video out and see if it is pushing the video to the aux monitor if is finish the install this way then install the video drivers for the seperate video card and the internal monitor should work. It is possible that the install CD is not readable on your gateways CD but still ok, you can just make a usb install of XP using another machine just use winflash or this other method http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vt_8p0VllY to make the USB. Go into the BIOS to change the boot order so the USB boots first. This will install Xp very quickly You can then install all the drivers for the machine. I use the USB method for most installs, there is even a way to get machines to boot off the USB that dont have bios support using Plop or other bootloaders. I have had the Video card go bad in these units, that can give these symptoms also.

[idocinthebox]

Sorry not winflash.. dont use that it is for bios flashing! Win to Flash http://wintoflash.com/home/en/