XP Pro Boot Disk I/O error

[custompccases]

Hello, my aunt recently purchased a new 80gig hd for her aging computer. She wants Xp installed on it since her last os was 98. The problem is that her computer is about 3 years old and it doesn't boot from cdrom only from floppy. So I then proceeded to DL the 6 part xp pro boot disk, when inserted the computer tries to read the floppy over and over again then shows a "Disk I/0 error". I have dled the boot disk creator from Microsoft 2 times. I have also properly set up the HD on another system (initialized and formatted). I have created the boot disks on different floppies 3 times. I have switched out the floppy drive twice with known working ones. The system will also read a msdos start up disk.

I am at a loss of what to do. Thank you for your time. :unsure:

[Frank]

You may want to check the bios updates for any updates it may have.

[CdCViRus]

open up google, and search for smartdrv.exe

take a standard win98 floppy disk, and copy smartdrv.exe onto it

boot off it with cdrom support

once you get to the command prompt (A:\>), type smartdrv TWICE, hitting enter after each

put your xp cd in the cdrom drive

cd to the \i386 folder

then type winnt

setup windowz

[custompccases]

Hmm the smartdrv.exe doesn?t seem to be working. I have tried with 10 different floppies and another floppy drive (now tried with 3 drives total). It gets to the screen where the line just blinks and I can hear the floppy drive thinking but it never does anything. The only response I get is when I try to use the 6 part xp boot disk and get the same old "Disk I/O error.

Really stumped on this one, anymore ideas would be greatly appreciated.

[John Veteran]

the floppy controller on the motherboard might be bad...