windows xp install issue?

ok, i posted once before about an error installing windows xp. now i have a related problem. after talking with dell they come to tell me that the bios will not work for xp, and that they have no plans to issue a new one, so i am stuck (although they say 2000 will work just fine). anoying, because they had no trouble selling me windows xp.....but i digress....

everytime the computer boots now, it wants to run windows xp setup. does anyone know how to make this little feature go away.....what's really anoying about it is, it defaults to run windows setup, so you have to watch for it, and select load windows manually, instead...

thank you

Continue to run the setup. Just delete all partitions when it gives you the option to decide the install location.

Then power off.

Actually it may be quite simple, assuming what you are talking about is the boot menu (which goes away after some seconds)...

Just edit your boot.ini file (in the root of your boot partition).

BE CAREFUL, CORRUPTION OF THIS FILE MAY RENDER YOUR SYSTEM UNUSABLE!

i will check the boot.ini file.thank you for that.

the problem is that i cannot load xp on this computer...it won't install, i've tried eveyrthing. so now that we've conceded that we have to stay with 98, it still wants to try to instal, thus, i need to make it quit that!

btw: What EXACT model Dell and which version of XP?

it was win 98 SE to windows XP home

a Dimension XPS Br i believe. P3 933

they only made them for a very short time before ME came out, then P4s....

dell states that its a problem with the bios that they know about, but won't be fixing

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=5
Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
[Operating Systems]
C:\="Cancel Windows XP Setup"
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Setup"

this is the boot ini file now on the pc. can i remove all of this, and if so, what do i put in it so that win 98 will boot properly