Pentium D 950 Windows 7 Install Help

Hi

I am having a bit of a nightmare trying to install Windows 7 on a Pentium D 950 computer, it's a NEC Powermate ML450. From what I have seen on Google etc. it can take Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 as it's got 3GB RAM, a 500GB HDD. It don't seem to boot from the disc on startup when I press F8 and select to boot from the disc, it just keeps looping. I currently have XP on it as that's all I can install on it so far. I have tried a USB stick to install Windows 7 but does the same thing and just loops on startup when press F8 and select USB.

I am currently trying to install Windows 7 from Windows itself and at the mo it is copying the Windows files but when it reboots it just keeps rebooting/looping

I installed Windows 7 upgrade tool and says Windows 7 can be installed so don't get it.

Has anyone had the same issue or can help please?

Thank you in advance

How did you get the Win 7 installation disk? Is it a original M$ disk or you burned a iso file on a DVD?

It's a ISO file burned onto a DVD, I have used it loads of times in other PC's and it works

On BIOS, set the main boot disk to the ODD.
Detach all other disks but the target disk (very important).
Boot from the Win 7 installation disk and do a clean install Clean Install Windows 7 - Windows 7 Help Forums
Make sure you delete ALL partitions on the target disk than create new partition.
Install on the big NTFS created.

Done that and still no joy, it just loops after I press enter to boot from the cd or dvd when the messages appears on startup

May be your Win 7 installation disk is damaged.
Burn another DVD.

I have tried others and still no joy, I have noticed the XP discs that it does boot up and install are CD's but the optical drive does support DVD's as it has the DVD and RW logo's on the front but seems odd that it can boot and install XP and nothing else, surely the PC can support Windows 7

I have given up on it as am out of ideas, I tried to even install a second hard drive and install Windows 7 on the second one and keep XP on the first one and started installing from the setup.exe file I clicked on within Windows XP and got to 30% on expanding files and it reboots but the issue happens where it just loops on startup and does not get no further than the splash screen where to press F2 for BIOS and just keeps looping that screen so gave up with it, for some reason it don't like to install anything properly apart from XP

As a test, try to install something like Linux Mint 32-bit on the computer. This will cause any hardware issues to show up. If successful, then there isn't likely any hardware issue with the computer.

OK will try that, what one is best to download from the following link?

Download - Linux Mint