Laptop Broken

A while back, about 4 months ago or so, i was trying a reformat, the CD actually turned out to be recovery CD sort of thing, keeps all the files but restored XP. But anyway, i was half way through when it started giving errors, so i tried to quit and i turned off my laptop, now when i boot it up onto the "checking for bootable disc", it says NTLRD is compressed.
So i bought a windows XP cd, first time i used it, went fine untill like 80 something percent, and it started giving me errors. Now everytime i try to boot the XP CD again, it wont boot at all, its saying NTLDR is compressed, No bootable Disc. Does anyone have a clue whats going on? or do i need a new HDD?

Your boot loader is borked. Just format and install, or you could try updating your bio - might be the problem.

I cant format, because it wont boot the disc anymore
How do i update the bios?
sorry, not great with this :P
Thanks for the help!

You update the bios by downloading a new bios from your motherboard manufacturers site. Then you do the risky "flash" bios.

Alternatively you may have damaged your master boot record.

You need to go into BIOS and set your 1st boot device as floppy.

Use a Windows 98SE floppy boot disk and boot to a DOS prompt.

Then type fdisk/mbr and hit enter.

Hopefully that fixes your master boot record and you can then proceed to reinstall windows.

You need to go into your BIOS and set your 1st boot device as CD.