I am not an computer wiz by any menas and was not sure where to post this.
I bought a Dell Inspiron at an auction...when I got it it had a 10g hard drive and cd-rom...It worked and had XP home on it! Being the genius that I am I ordered a Toshiba 40g HD for it and a dvd/r-Rw...some how I wipped out the XP on the old drive...I have the old cd-rom in it! in Bios it will not expand the DC-rom like its not there...

I had a guy look at it and he said it was missing some kind??? of a partion...It will not boot a CD or read the CD-rom...So I can not load an operating system on it! I bought this computer to eb a 2nd one in my home...My kids are homw schooled and I though they could use it for learning programs, etc...Right now it useless...

Support Information:
Device Type: BIOS / Motherboard
Manufacturer: Dell Computer
Model: Inspiron 2500
Interface: Other
Operating System: Not Applicable
Age of Device: < 2 years old
FCCID:

Find it on DriverGuide (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=srch&sm=b&aax=&qa6=294&qa5=1&qa7=2&dp=2&qm0=Inspiron+2500&jmd=and&fzz=d) | Find it with Google (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=Dell+Computer+BIOS+%2F+Motherboard++Inspiron+250 0+Not+Applicable+) | Research manufacturer Dell Computer (http://members.driverguide.com/index.php?action=getinfo&companyid=294)

I cannot find this model on the Dell Website (support.dell.com/support/downloads/index.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen)

Assuming the bios supports the 40 gb. hard drive, and supports booting from CD-ROM drive, you should have no problem getting the optical drive to boot from the Windows XP installation disk. In order for it to do so, you must enter pc bios and make the optical drive the first boot device.

If your new 40 gb. has not been preped... then you must first partition the drive using FDISK.EXE, then format it using FORMAT.COM

An alternate method of prepping the drive is to use the drive makers hard drive prep software. It's posted for free download from Toshiba.

If the drives full 40 gb. capacity is not recognized during formatting, then you will need an update bios firmware that supports large drives or you can use the drive manufacturers overlay software. Or you can partition the drive into 2 or 3 smaller partitions to overcome bios limitations.

http://www.toshibastorage.com/main.aspx?Path=HardDrivesOpticalDrives/ConsumerElectronicsHardDiskDrives