(SOLVED) Help with new Zbox and OS install

[TomsHardwareFan]

Please help. I just bought a Zotac Zbox AD04 M1 Plus which has an AMD e-4500 dual core processor/6 Gig HD/2 Gig Ram and then a cheap LG portable USB external drive to install software. It's purpose is solely to function as a media center. I have an original Win XP Pro CD that came with on old laptop in 2007 that I intend to install (with product key). I "thought" I connected everything before I turned it on but had forgotten to connect a keyboard. Everything went seamless, files got copied, etc up until it came to where I needed to hit enter/R/F3 to continue. At that point I remembered the keyboard wasn't connected and I don't know if this was the cause of my problem but connecting it at that point didn't seem to work. I even tried different keyboards just to be sure it wasn't a fluke. Still no response. This is my first experience with a new computer w/o an OS. Well, as it turned out I had no choice but to cancel the install i.e., turn it off. I have no idea what to do now. When I turn it on it goes to the Zbox screen and then immediately black screen with blinking cursor. I tried turning it on with and without the CD in the drive but being new at this, I don't know what kind of trouble or damage I've done and need help to fix it.

Can someone please help? I've googled myself into a migraine and still can't figure out how to get out of this. I keep seeing advice on getting into the BIOS but I can't even do that. Just really need some direction and get this up and running...hopefully.

Thanks for your help.

 

[TomsHardwareFan]

What would life be without google? After 24 hours of grueling and constant searching each time a new issue came up (mostly with windows-what a surprise), I finally got it up and running with XP along with SP3 and the 114 security updates. What an amazing little box it turned out to be.