black screen of death

[lenolost]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to forum posting and apologize if i have written too much. i am very anxious about my problem and wanted to give any information i thought would be even remotely helpful.

MY NEW LAPTOP

lenovo SL500 Think Pad, x64 Intel 2 duo core 2.57ghz, 4GB ram

-was bought with Vista installed, and first thing i did was install Puppy Linux over vista (or puppy gave me option to delete vista, or something else that means vista is gone).

-that day was a frustrating one because so much technical work needed to be done to get everything working properly in linux. i remember one point i was changing deep system configurations through linux (i think boot settings), by listening to linux users' advice on a chat program. i didnt know what i was doing, but if it helps for you to know, i am under full impression that the advice i was given was well-meant.

TODAY

-i have XP pro x64 and was excited to start my new laptop life today with xp because i love the OS. linux is too much for me at this point.

-at first i thought i could just install over puppy (like puppy went over vista).

-i put the cd in and powered off then on, and the cd was spinning and things were going well (i have seen xp HOME boot up for an install and remember how the process goes).

-blue screen, says "Windows Setup" at the top left, an option at the bottom offering me:

"press F6 if need to install third party SCSI or RAID driver", then switches to saying "press F2 for system recovery".

then it switches to saying "setup is loading files" and different words are flashing through (like it is loading files). Then after 25 seconds of flashing words, it stops dead in its tracks and a message fills the screen saying:

A prob has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage. if this is first time you see this stop error screen, restart and try again. if this appears again, check for viruses, remove newly installed hard drives or hard drive controllers. check hard drive so it is properly configured and terminated. run chkdsk for hard drive corruption and restart comp.

BACKGROUND INFO

-there was vista when i bought it

-installed puppy linux on whole drive

-i made partitions in linux, because i thought i was going to install more distros then.

-i think there was a total of 4 partitions i made, each of different sizes, containing the OS, empty space, swap space, etc.

-through linux i changed something to do with booting (i dont remember what it was) . i blindly followed peoples advice and i was tweaking digits and things in a file that i opened with notepad (or the equivalent of notepad).

-puppy ended up working fairly well though.

-i tried installing XP PRO today and i eventually get an error message.

-i put in another xp cd i have (Home) to see if that would have the same effect, and it did.

-so i did research and thought i needed to wipe the drive.

-i burned "dban boot and nuke" iso to cd and it booted fine and then spent a whole 2 hours wiping the drive.

-it completed and said "success"

-then I put xp pro back in and the same problem happens.

-except now no more Puppy.

IF I TURN IT ON WITH NO CD INSIDE

Think Pad logo comes up right away for 5 seconds,

and then a solid black screen takes over, with a little white curser blinking in the top left.

and that's it!

-buttons cause no change

However I can boot from live cd's (i have puppy linux boot cd and it works perfectly fine).

-if i check partitions through puppy linux OS, i see that the whole hard drive is one piece and unallocated.

(many partitions existed when puppy was installed. so "dban boot and nuke" must have wiped the drive.

i have used the laptop for about 5 hours in total (minus time installing linux)

it is bran new.

i hope i have not damaged something with linux somehow.

i have no idea what to do.

i would be so appreciative of any help about this.

this is my first time using these forums and i am sorry if i have not given you enough information.

please tell me what you need to know and i will make sure to find out.

i will check back here often,

and thank you very much for any help at all!

Alex

[MANEMAN]

Hi there, and Welcome.

You need professional help. Expect to pay for it !

i have no idea what to do.

You had plenty of ideas when you set out. Just use reverse engineering. :)

John.

[Seshomaru Samma]

Most probably you have Sata discs that Vista and Linux see but XP needs special drivers to install on.

Look for online tutorials on how to slipstream sata drivers into an XP disc. I can google one for you if you wish.

Consider installing Win7 or Ubuntu Linux - both modern OS that are easily to install and operate.

(Puppy Linux is NOT a friendly disro, you can't do anything in it without hours of tinkering)