Dell Laptop 5100 trouble w/XP

I have a Dell 5100 laptop that I am working on. Upon bootup it prompts "No Operating System Found". I am trying to install Win XP Pro and go through the beginning steps, deleted partition, created new one, formated in NTFS then it starts to copy Win XP Install files. Goes through that process and at the end, it tells me it's going to restart the laptop in "15 seconds" but when it does, it starts from the begining of the install again. It keeps going in this cycle. What could it be?

Joe

Er i know this might sound silly but you didnt press a key when it said boot from CD did you or perhaps have a stuck key?

No, I let it do it's own thing. I have to watch it closer next time to see if it is automatically booting from the cd without pressing a key.

I found the issue. The harddrive was flagged disabled in the bios. I enabled it and now it works fine.

That would do it! Glad you sorted it.