Cant get windows installed on pc

Hey guys.

I got a Pentium 4 Dell pc, 2.6GHZ, 256RAM with a DVD Rom only and windows XP Pro. It's not mine lol. The windows takes about 30mins to load up and while it does, you only see the desktop wallpaper and mouse cursors. Once loaded it takes 5 or more minutes to open a window. I checked the taskmanager and saw 100% cpu usage, close the program that was doing that and the 100% jumps to another process. I'm sure it's a virus and most of the files are infected so I decided to reinstall their windows.

When I boot to DVD Rom the disc spins and stops, left it for about an hour but nothing happens. I then tried connecting my DVD writer but same thing happens. I change IDE cables or IDE ports as well as changing the master and slave jumpers. I then used wintoflash to load the windows onto a flash drive and then booted to the usb device but nothing happens. I then connected hard drive to my pc and windows setup runs, so I shutdown pc after all the setup files was copied to the hard drive. Reconnected the hard drive to the pc as well as my DVD Writer and it boots to the windows setup loading bar and then BSOD 0X0000007B. Is this because I copyied setup files using my PC? this usually happens if you've loaded windows completely and then moved the hard drive to another pc, right? Any Ideas?

much appreciated!

You won't be able to install Win7 with that little RAM. Upgrade the RAM to 1gb or more to see any decent performance. You can google the exact PC or mobo model + RAM upgrade to study the results, run Crucial Memory Advisor, ascertain the exact RAM specs then shop online or go to a parts counter at a shop to buy it.

I would want to upgrade to a 528mb RAM to even run the licensed XP on that machine, which is what you may decide is the most eonomical thing to do until you/they buy a new PC. A Clean Reinstall using an OEM install disk for your licensed version of XP may also help, or if it's still the factory preinstall you can run Recovery from it's partition and/or then Clean Up Factory Bloatware

Don't even think windows 7 will install with that little ram that's why I'm installing XP. I've installed XP on another machine with 256RAM and it wasn't fast but sufficient. They only doing admin and school work on the PC, not even printing so 256RAM should be ok. The previous guy who installed windows wiped the entire drive so no Recovery drive but I'm using my windows XP and the serial key on their PC sticker. The problem is that windows setup is not booting from any device, not usb, not dvd. I've manage to run windows setup from my PC to get all the setup files copied to the hard drive, then stopped before the setup could run. I was hoping that with the setup files on I can boot to the hard drive and run windows setup but I get the BSOD error when the windows loading bar appears. I forgot to mention that I booted into safe mode in the infected windows to check if ROM is working and it works fine but when I try to boot to the ROM it doesn't work.

ok manage to get the first windows that run up to cpu 100% to work correctly, a very long system restore, though same damage from the viruses remain. Not really the solution I was looking for but pc is running great just need to look for vga drivers as system restore went back before any video drivers were installed. Still curious on any ideas to load windows with this problem.

Thanks for the suggestions!!

Nowhere in your post did it say that you are installing XP. This is a Win7 forum.

You need to boot the CD, delete all partitions, repartition and do a full format. How to Boot your Computer from a Bootable CD or DVD, or tap the one-time BIOS boot menu key.

I would even consider wiping the HD first with Diskpart Clean Command or a boot CD like Darik's Boot N Nuke or Partition Wizard. This way you could also test another bootable CD, albeit one which boots itself, and a Cleaned HD forces the install CD to boot itself, too.