Andy wrote:
On Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 5:54:40 AM UTC-5, Paul wrote:
Micky wrote:
[Default] On Fri, 10 Jun 2016 18:39:24 -0400, in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general Paul wrote:

Andy wrote:

I have no problem in the past re-installing XP from the same disk.

Even if the disk was working, I no longer have my Win 98 disk.

Since XP requires an older Win version to be already present on the hard disk.

Andy
You're going to need your thinking cap then.

I don't have any pointers to stuff that old.

Some upgrade discs, it was sufficient for
the qualifying OS CD to be present in the
drive. So the OS didn't have to be present
on the hard drive.

Are you sure you don't have a backup of a
C: drive from that era, somewhere ? Or even
an actual C: drive ? Like, sitting in
some old unused computer in the attic ?

Paul
Can he buy a used XP computer for 30 dollars at a hamfest, or
craigslist, and somehow make it run on his computer?
Edit the PID on setupp.ini on the disc image, then
burn a new disc ? The original site is gone, but
it's in the Archive.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070513...ver-retail.htm

Paul

Thanks for the replies.

I decided to stick with Linux as my O.S.

andy

Here is a list for setupp.ini .

http://wiki.lunarsoft.net/wiki/Product_IDs

"Windows XP Pro OEM SP3 GRTMPOEM_EN 4-14-08 5:00 76487 OEM"

Here's an example from mine, a System Builder
(OEM) from Canada. Doesn't do a CD check for Win98
or anything :-)

[Pid]
ExtraData=786F687170637175716954806365EF
Pid=76487OEM

Since the number of characters needing editing
is small, it's possible ripping your WinXP CD,
finding the three characters of interest and changing
them with a hex editor, then re-burn some media,
may be sufficient to do the job. No need
to load the ISO9660 into a proper editor. Worth
a shot if you have some re-writable media (so it
doesn't cost anything to try).

Finding a hex editor you can live with, is a lifetime
research project. Only a couple of months ago, I
tried out HxD (a 64 bit version) and finally,
I can work on 30GB files with ease. My previous
hex editor was only comfortable at the 1GB level.
And would be suited to this hex edit of the
CD image.

You know when doing dual boot of course, there
are "easy" install orders and "hard" install orders.
Where doing OS installs in the wrong order, requires
you know what you're doing when repairing later. To
test the newly minted WinXP CD, I'd apply that
to a blank hard drive, and see what happens. It's
either that, or do a backup of your Linux drive
before WinXP blows away the MBR on you. Save the
MBR using "dd", if you want an easy repair later. As
that is what WinXP would damage. You only need to put
back the code section of the MBR (446 bytes) and not
modify the partition table (512 bytes).

[In Linux, this saves the MBR before the WinXP install happens...]

sudo dd if=/dev/sda of=~/winxp_cant_hurt_my_mbr.bin bs=512 count=1

Reinstalling the code section later, requires a sub-sized write.
Something like this. Research the details.

[In Windows, administrator command prompt window]

http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.6beta3.zip

dd --list # returns identifier of each disk, sda assumed in this example
# Current directory assumed to contain the 512 byte .bin file.

dd if=winxp_cant_hurt_my_mbr.bin of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 bs=446 count=1

That's the basic idea of a cleanup of a wrong-order install.

Note that the Chrysocome port doesn't always have write
permission, so sometimes you'd need a Linux LiveCD to
do it (i.e. go back to Linux Land to finish the job,
and bring your Linux install back to life as boot
manager).

sudo dd if=/media/mount/harddrive/home/andy/winxp_cant_hurt_my_mbr.bin of=/dev/sda bs=446 count=1

HTH,
Paul