formatted HD, now no access to BIOS..?

[melle]

I just wiped my HD tonight and now nothing seems to be working.. I was running windows ME but want to install XP home, and decided to wipe my HD and start fresh. After looking around at info, and reading that the XP cdRom may not do a complete wipe, I decided to do format c: /u first, then planned to go into BIOS to boot from CDrom and install XP from there. However, I can't get into BIOS.. I "hit DEL to enter setup" but it goes straight on to try and boot from a floppy..
What should I do now? Have I completely stuffed my computer??!!!
Thanks in advance for your help.

[ajzchips]

Are you using a USB keyboard? When was the last time you successfully accessed the BIOS? If so, was it with this same keyboard?

[melle]

No, I'm using a 'normal' keyboard, and can type at other stages of the startup. To be honest I don't think I've ever accessed the BIOS, I've only gone into BIOS recently on my dad's computer (which I'm using now), so perhaps I've never been able to get into it on my computer? It's an American Megatrends BIOS if that helps any.. I've had a quick look on their website but havn't found help yet.

[melle]

A bit more joy.. I now seem to have another problem that may or may not be related. I've been trying to install XP via the downloaded boot disks, which then lead into the CDrom, and it goes all the way to the CDrom. It went fine and I chose to format and then install, the formatting went fine and then when it goes to install is says some file is corrrupt and it can't install XP.. how can a file be corrupt if I've already wiped the C drive and then formatted, again, with the XP disk? So I restarted without any floppy and now it comes up with 'NTLDR is missing'...??
I thought I'd be fine at this.. think I should stick to design

[melle]

Well it seems it was my keyboard after all.. even though it is not USB, for some reason it doesn't recognise DEL at startup - faulty pins perhaps?
I took my computer around to a friend's house and after plugging in his keyboard, it all worked fine.

[edwin]

some keyboards are made "according to the standards" but are only marginal at best, and they fail when asked for something that's standardized pretty strict (response time).

[NickS]

Faulty keyboard results in message "NTLDR is missing" ?

[edwin]

nope, DEL not being recognized at startup. the best in this ctegory was the mouse on a packard bell system preventing it from starting up at all e.g. not even showing the boot screen.