[kapslock]

Hi,

I'm having trouble installing Windows XP on my laptop and I am wondering if some of you can help.

I had a dual boot system, that I had created by installing linux (fedora 4 core) on a windows xp home system.

A couple of days ago, the windows tanked. A boot to windows xp home brought me to "lsass.exe error - object name not found" popup window, with an OK button, clicking which simply rebooted the system. I read about it, and figuring it was a virus, decided that I'd reinstall windows (or format the windows partition).

When I booted the laptop with the windows xp home sp1 installable cd, it behaved thus:
1. The cd was accessed, and I was prompted thus "Press any key to boot from the CD ..."
2. Upon pressing a key, it displays "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" for just 2-3 seconds, and then the screen goes blank (and blue). The CD access stops, but the hard disk continually gets accessed.

I can boot to a linux installation CD, and finish installation of linux. I also booted into linux and deleted all the partitions on the hard disk. I also deleted grub as the partition manager. Still no luck. I just can't manage to install windows.

Anybody got some idea what's going on?

The laptop is a HP Pavillion 5700. The Windows XP CD isn't bad - I had a Windows XP Professional CD available (that wasn't the original CD of the laptop - I borrowed it from a friend, to check what's going on) - it also does exactly the same.

Any tips would be thankfully received.

-Kapil