alryt i got a amd sempron 2200 BAREBONES system from frys. it had 128 mb ram, 40 gig hard drive, and a cdrom, all for 99 bucks.  and the operating system "linspire" on it. i think it's linux. but yeah i wanted windows xp, so i bought a windows xp oem version disk from walmart.  i tried to install it, but when i try to boot it up with it, it detects it, then asks if i want to boot from cd, then i get a blank screen. i tried to put my other computer's restore cd's and the windows xp one installed it, but then it wouldnt boot up with xp, it said there was a problem. so i know it can boot up. iduno what to do with this disk tho.  or is it linux? do i need to delete stuff? this is the first computer i'm buiilding so it's very frustrating.
thanks for the helpp.Im pretty sure you're going to have to reformat the hard drive first, but you might want to wait for someone else to confirm this.Dale Salem...Well , it doesnt sound like you have any data stored on this pc ...so I would wipe the Hard drive clean and then do a clean install of Win XP .
Does this pc have a floppy drive ?

let US know

dl65  Looks like you may have to delete the old partitions with wxpboot.exe and then make new ones booting to the XP CD.

Is the XP CD GOOD and clean? I wash them in luke-warm water with a DROP of liquid soap and a soft sponge and then dry gently with a clean linen cloth to prevent there being any read errors when installing.

128Mb of RAM is a bit low for XP which really needs a minimum of 512Mb to perform properly.

XP Clean Installing
XP Compatability Test
XP Partition Management
XP Installing Recovery Console

RAM Knowledge Base
RAM And What it Does
RAM Virtual Memory Paging
RAM Reseating & Fitting PDF File

Processor Temperatures
Service Pack Slipstreamer
Power Supply Wattage Calculator
Everest HOME Edition Computer Diagnostic Program