LinuxQuestions.org - problem, dual boot, xp/redhat, cdtray kept ejecting, del redhat part. wont boot a OS

im not sure what category this would end up being in since i think it could be either or, far as software or hardware...but i got a major problem that just isnt going the way i expected it to go lol.

ok, lets start out here....i got a dell laptop inspiron 1100 with XP home on it.

i installed redhat into it..., graphics were kind of odd, so i rebooted it,worked just fine. went to bed, and woke up, the graphics were kind of screwy again. i logged on my XP system, which was labeled DOS for some reason in the linux boot screen or whatever its called. i went on there..things were fine.

i went to work on something, and it appeared to not be doing anything for several minutes, so i shut it down..rebooted it i got this gnome error. when it loaded up the taskbar it would load everything then get the gnome error...i hit ok, it would load the taskbar up again, got to the last item ont he taskbar and the gnome error came back..it was a repetitive thing and the taskbar was then useless.

to make the situation worse, the CD-Rom then kept wanting to eject..it happened once before on my XP long time ago, but i think it was just the disc i was using it didnt like or something...but now its happening again.

when you first turn the computer on, and it loads the one screen (usually from what brand it is) so it shows the dell screen, and has the F2 for setup and F12 for one time boot and stuff...well from that point and forever on it will keep wanting to eject my CD . now and then i can get it to stay aftr a few tries without the CD in it, with a CD it keeps wanting to eject.

now, to make matters worse than what they already seem..i figured redhat was causing it, so i decided to reinstall redhat..actually i decided to delete redhat and reinstall it when i had more free time...i went to XP, deleted the partitions...which i knew i probably shouldnt of done but was the one way i knew would work...well it didnt.

after the first screen would come the operating system screen..which i was hoping to see the Windows XP boot up screen...nope, wrong again. it wanted to give that nice selection screen that linux has, however it couldnt load it whatsoever since it didnt exist yet some part does.

now i get this message instead:

"Grub version 0.92 (636K lower / 390948K upper memory)

[ Minimal BASH-like line editing is supported. For the first word, TAB lists possible command completions. Anywhere else TAB lists the possible completions of a device/filename. ]

grub> _" (the _ represents the typing cursor)

and i can type Help, will open a list of things, i tried a couple i was familiar with but i would get things like No such partition or something like that....im new to linux so im not much knowledgeable to the commands they shown and how to properly use them.

in conclusion, im screwed...if i cant get to a OS, and i cant reinstall XP if the cd tray keeps ejecting...its almost useless... if i could keep the cd tray in there, at one point i did get the "press any key to boot from cdrom" option..not sure if it would of completly worked or not, since the cd tray ejected it not long after....it stays in for a second most the time, or it may even go for a few seconds...but it gets the signal or something to eject, and doesnt runt he CD at all...it may be in there but it needs more than a couple of seconds before it gets known and running.

i know i typed up a lot of stuff there...but if you can help, then please do...since this is a linux forum..and i just messed around with redhat..im hoping you have the answer.

Thanks,
Ray