Desktop

Please provide the details of the hardware that u have now including everything. Then only one can tell the exact solution.

Thnx

It sounds like you are using a hard drive that already has windows installed or partially installed. Do you have the computer set to boot to CD so you can put the XP CD in and have the computer boot to it so you can install? If you reset the CMOS it most likely defaulted back to trying to boot first to the Floppy drive and then the hard drive so it isn't looking to the CD drive for a CD to use for booting.

Try formatting the harddrive using another cd. OR If you have two harddrives run windows on the other, format the secondary drive, swap the drives and then run a fresh install.

If that doesn't work, I'd say move that harddrive to another box and load it on as the master drive there, it could be that there is some sort of specific hardware conflict on your machine, If it doesnt work on another computer either you have two options:
1)You have a bad harddrive, see if you can get it replaced, or buy a new one
2)You have a bad Windows Disk, which you can take the necessary steps to alleviate.

The only other explanation would be that there is some sort of problem with using THAT windows disk on THAT harddrive, but i've never heard of a harddrive that isnt compatible with windows.

Good luck.
-Matt

Delete and re-create the partitions if you have not already done-so.

Would need some more information as to what hardware you are using.

But, here are a couple of things. When you say you swapped out the motherboard, was it the exact same motherboard? How old is the motherboard?

One thing you can try and it has worked for me is to update the BIOS. I had a problem installing XP on an older system and after updating the BIOS, I was able to install XP.

Windows XP uses Speedstep v.2 automatically. This can cause a problem with chipsets that only support Intel Speedstep v.1. If you have an Intel board, and it supports speedstep, disable it in the BIOS, then try to reinstall.