I have posted to a mulittude of tech support sites with this new problem and apparently I have caught up with most of them in "knowledge" because it seems like my responses are being spewed by 5th graders. HA!! Sorry just frustrated.
Here is a copy of the post:
I want to downgrade my OS back to XP today, long story, but I couldnt get the install to begin so I used GPART NTFS Format disc to wipe the drive moved right onto installing XP from disc but cant get past "no bootable device--strike F1 to retry etc".
1. Have tried enable/disable drives to start from (I have an internal and external cd drive) but cant get disc to load.
2. Ive read through 50% of the threads here to no avail.
3. Ive done the CTL+F11 idea/nothing.
4. Ive run the F5 diagnostic and everything passes.
5. My HDD
is being seen as is my DVD-ROM.
6. My disc is the original factory disc.
7. Dell D620 Laptop
8. Went into maintenance and put general system back to default/saved/right back to no bootable devices. Went back and changed boot order again leaving only cd drive viable.
9. Ran F5 again. "Pre-boot assessment complete. No diagnostic utility partition identified. Please select ok to reboot your system "
10.Clean and checked disc. Reads in other drives.
PLEASE give me other ideas to get back on track. Ill go read the other 50% of these posts. Hopefully someone out there can offer a solution that will work.
Thanks in advance!
Any thoughts?