Problem reinstalling XP after formatting

[kaomaster]

I formatted the hard drive and tried to reinstall XP, but my Inspiron keeps shutting down at the same point: it loads the drivers and then shuts down at the Windows setup menu. So now I have an partition without an OS. Any suggestions?

 

[sieistganzfett]

your laptop physically "turns off" at a certain spot of setup? and the setup menu is during the 1st 10 minutes or so before gui. it could be overheating cpu, use compressed air to blow out the dust, the inspirions have the cpu under the keyboard, you can ghetto clean it by just blowing dust into computer from the back or better yet take off the keyboard and blow out the fan. hopefully this fixes it. is this a new computer? what model? why did you need to reinstall? is the laptop charging properly off of the power cord? can you run it for a duration without doing the setup, such as in memtest or something intesive like windows setup is?

 

[kaomaster]

How do I crack open an Inspiron 1000's keyboard? The Dell manuals don't really say how.

 

[kaomaster]

Never mind, found it. I cleaned out the dust and let it cool for a while. Which was just enough to get me through the installation process, so I guess it was the cpu. Thanks!