I'm not SURE, why, it's doing this for some reason.  When I try and do a reinstall of Windows 7 or XP on a wiped drive, it just sits there at the Intel boot screen and won't continue anymore.  Not sure if this is a over heat thing or why, it's acting like that.

Intel MB, Pent 4, ATI X1300, 1.25 GB DDR RAM, MAXTOR 300 GB SATAHi Bob

If you are USING windows cd's or windows 7 dvd's to install  it shouldn't do that. Some motherboards lock like that if you have a USB pen drive inserted. Form what media are you installing from ?

Also  the bios may not be able to detect the hard drive. Try booting without the hard drive connected. 

Or check in the bios that the hard drive is being detected .Reset bios and see if that FIXES it. Then check the following.

What is boot order in BIOS is DVD ROM first and is this a DVD ROM or a CD ROM. Also Windows XP is lacking SATA controller support prior to SP2 for many controllers so you might need to create a slipstream with the SATA controller driver bundled on it. However Windows 7 should have legacy SATA controller drivers that should work on just about any Windows 7 original installation Disc. However if you have DVD discs in a CD-Rom drive they wont be read and system will sit at logo and should get to a boot failure message.

Are you sure this hard drive wiped was healthy... as well as Windows 7 on 1.25GB RAM will run but not be well for multitasking on that system. I'd suggest 2GB RAM with Windows 7 32-bit. Also both Windows XP and 7 need to be the 32 bit versions for that Pentium 4.

Trying to think of anything I didnt cover... Thats all I can think of for now.Try another hard drive.
Erase the drive with GNOME Partition Editor
http://gparted.org/
Quote

Perform actions with partitions such as:
    create or delete
    resize or move
    check
    label
    set new UUID
    copy and paste