Hello. I want to reformat my PC because I am giving it to my mother plus it is getting old (maybe 5yrs) and running slow. I set BIOS to boot from disk first but as soon as I see something that says something like "windows setup" I get this MESSAGE...."file\i386\ntkrnlmp.exe could not be loaded. error code is 1024". I have also recently not been able to pull up a DOS prompt from run, cmd.
"C:WINDOWS\system32\command.com
C:WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\AUTOEXEC.NT. The system file is not suitable for running MS_DOS & Microsoft Windows applications. Choose 'Close' to terminate the application"


I run CA Internet security suite (cablevision) but as I was typing this I got a popup saying that like 54 threats were removed & 157,839 attempts to connect to my COMPUTER were blocked. I have a wired NETWORK setup in my home including 2 PCs & an Xbox.

Any ideas what is going on here?

Are you talking about two computers, or one?1 PCAnd is this an XP CD or a sharpie version ? ?Original XP disk that came with the PC.You should be able to simply boot to the XP CD and start the installation...there is a selection to remove and re-create a new partition...this will erase all data on the drive.As soon as the disk begins to boot I get that error message. I can't get anywhere (where set to boot from cd-rom 1st) before I get that message.Have you tried cleaning the CD?
Do you have another bootable disk you can try, just to rule out the drive as the culprit?Well I only have 1 cd-rom drive but I have tried 2 different XP disks with the same results.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/318729 points to INCORRECT BIOS settings, or bad RAM.