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#1
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Hi,
I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. |
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#2
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Boris, have you tried installing the OS from Windows 2000?
"Boris" wrote in message .213... Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. |
#3
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
"Rich Barry" wrote in
: Boris, have you tried installing the OS from Windows 2000? "Boris" wrote in message .213... Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. It's running fine on Windows 2000, but that's not what I want to run. I want to run WinXP, and have the retail CD to install it, but no matter what I do, the system won't read from CD. |
#4
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Boris, when you are in Win2K and you insert the WinXP CD into the
drive, can you read it. If you can, go to the install.exe file and double click it. It should start the Install. Select new install and not upgrade. "Boris" wrote in message .213... Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. |
#5
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
On Sep 25, 10:27*pm, "Rich Barry" wrote:
* * *Boris, when you are in Win2K *and you insert the WinXP CD into the drive, can you read it. If you can, go to the install.exe file * * *and double click it. It should start the Install. *Select new install and not upgrade."Boris" wrote in message .213... Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. *It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. |
#6
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Boris wrote:
Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. What is the make and model of the PC? Are you *sure* you configured the BIOS to make sure the CD-ROM drive is the first boot priority? When you say "All attempts have failed," what exactly do you mean? |
#7
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
"Boris" wrote in message
.213 Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. You have to actually boot from the XP CD to do what you want. To do that, you might have to go into your BIOS CMOS System settings (whichever it's calledg) and set the CD to be the first boot device with your hard drive as the second boot drive. That way it'll look for the CD to boot from first and if there is no CD in the drive of if it's not bootable, it'll just boot 2000. When it's working right, during a boot you'll get a prompt like "Press any key to boot from the CD" and a countdown will start, which will put you back into 2000 if you don't press a key before it reaches zero. It's a very round about way to do it using a boot floppy. HTH, Twayne` |
#8
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
"Twayne" wrote in news:#mfpNxrPKHA.1512
@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl: "Boris" wrote in message .213 Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. You have to actually boot from the XP CD to do what you want. To do that, you might have to go into your BIOS CMOS System settings (whichever it's calledg) and set the CD to be the first boot device with your hard drive as the second boot drive. That way it'll look for the CD to boot from first and if there is no CD in the drive of if it's not bootable, it'll just boot 2000. When it's working right, during a boot you'll get a prompt like "Press any key to boot from the CD" and a countdown will start, which will put you back into 2000 if you don't press a key before it reaches zero. It's a very round about way to do it using a boot floppy. HTH, Twayne` Hi, Yes, I'm aware that the way to do this is to boot from the XP CD. I've done it many times doing clean installs on other machines. I am familiar with making changes, etc. within a BIOS, I do it all the time. The problem is that this particular machine will not boot from CD. The BIOS allows me to set it to boot from CD, and I've done that, but it simply will not. The original set up was a Win2000 Pro, SP1: A: NEC floppy C: Western Digital 80GB, Win2000, primary IDE channel, jumpered single D: NEC CD-ROM, secondary IDE, jumpered master E: Plextor DVD/R, secondary IDE, jumpered slave The CD-ROM would always read data cds, but about 90% of the time would not read audio cds. If an audio cd were placed in D, it would not auto start Windows Media Player, even though set to do so. If I navigated to D with Windows Explorer, it said please insert a disk in drive D. The DVD/R would never read either data or audio cds. By the way, the BIOS recognizes both optical drives, and even in Device Manager, the optical drives are recognized, and 'working properly'. System Information (Accessories) also reports the optical drives properly. I did uninstall and reinstall the generic Windows drivers (and secondary IDE controller) for these optical drives, but no luck fixing the problems. I decided to install Windows XP Pro on to a larger, Western Digital 160GB hard drive that I had on the shelf from a few years ago, and see if the optical drives would work under XP. My suspicion was that even though my son had installed Win2000 from CD years ago, that the optical drives must have worked then, and it must have booted from CD then, but because he loved to experiment with OSs and dual booting Linux/Win2000, and video and sound cards...blah blah blah, that I needed to start from scratch. With the machine configured as above, I connected this drive to the primary IDE channnel, jumpered slave, and re-jumpered the Win2000 drive from single to master. I started the machine, and Win2000 came up as usual, identifying the slave hard drive as F. I put the XP cd in D, but no auto start. I navigated to cd, and clicked off Setup, and XP setup began. It would not allow me to install XP on/over Win2000 already on C, but did allow me to do and Advanced Install, which I did on F. All went fine, and when done, I had a dual boot system with Win2000 on C, and WinXP on F. When I started the machine, I was presented with the dual boot loader screen, and I could choose either OS. If I chose XP, guess what, my optical drives worked fine, and even auto started audio cds. If I chose Win2000, I was stuck with the problems described above. I really didn't want a dual boot system. I prefer a single boot system with XP. so I started to try to install XP on the new hard drive. But, because the machine won't boot from CD, even when set to do so in the BIOS, I've had to use a Win98SE startup floppy to install a ramdrive, which allows me to read the CD-ROM. If you've read this far, thanks. |
#9
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Boris wrote:
I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Your CD drive and/or the Windows XP CD you are trying to utilize and/or hard disk drive and/or controller and/or cables need to be checked. One of those things is crapping out on you. I base this off your initial posting and all of your follow ups. Going by this and all your other responses - I am supposing you want a 100% clean installation. Windows 2000 and all files will be wiped from the drive - never to return. The prior OS has *no* bearing at this point. Just the fuctionality of the hardware. If your BIOS gives the option to boot from your CD drive, if your CD drive and cables are good, if your hard disk drive and cables are good and if there is no issues with your controller card - all of this should work with nothing more than the Windows XP CD and a few changes in the BIOS and a keyboard/mouse. (Assuming things like the video card allows you to see the screen, of course.) You may have another option, however - although I stand by your need to check the things above (download the Western Digital utilities CD, burn it and run the full diags.) Download and creat the 6-boot Floppy diskettes. Put in the Windows CD, but boot off the floppy diskettes. (You said you have a floppy drive - this is why I suggest this.) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 If after using the 6-boot-diskette option, you still cannot get things installed - there is a hardware failure on the machine - see above... Admittedly - it would be the first time I would have seen anyone use the floppy diskettes with Windows XP Media Center Edition - but since it is just Professional with a few extra features and a few less features... (So get the professional edition CDs.) Also - SP1 or SP2 - I am unsure if there are SP3 floppy diskettes. Although if this is an original STAMPED CD - you'll likely have one or two and not SP3. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html |
#10
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Boris wrote:
"Twayne" wrote in news:#mfpNxrPKHA.1512 @TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl: "Boris" wrote in message .213 Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. You have to actually boot from the XP CD to do what you want. To do that, you might have to go into your BIOS CMOS System settings (whichever it's calledg) and set the CD to be the first boot device with your hard drive as the second boot drive. That way it'll look for the CD to boot from first and if there is no CD in the drive of if it's not bootable, it'll just boot 2000. When it's working right, during a boot you'll get a prompt like "Press any key to boot from the CD" and a countdown will start, which will put you back into 2000 if you don't press a key before it reaches zero. It's a very round about way to do it using a boot floppy. HTH, Twayne` Hi, Yes, I'm aware that the way to do this is to boot from the XP CD. I've done it many times doing clean installs on other machines. I am familiar with making changes, etc. within a BIOS, I do it all the time. The problem is that this particular machine will not boot from CD. The BIOS allows me to set it to boot from CD, and I've done that, but it simply will not. The original set up was a Win2000 Pro, SP1: A: NEC floppy C: Western Digital 80GB, Win2000, primary IDE channel, jumpered single D: NEC CD-ROM, secondary IDE, jumpered master E: Plextor DVD/R, secondary IDE, jumpered slave The CD-ROM would always read data cds, but about 90% of the time would not read audio cds. If an audio cd were placed in D, it would not auto start Windows Media Player, even though set to do so. If I navigated to D with Windows Explorer, it said please insert a disk in drive D. The DVD/R would never read either data or audio cds. By the way, the BIOS recognizes both optical drives, and even in Device Manager, the optical drives are recognized, and 'working properly'. System Information (Accessories) also reports the optical drives properly. I did uninstall and reinstall the generic Windows drivers (and secondary IDE controller) for these optical drives, but no luck fixing the problems. I decided to install Windows XP Pro on to a larger, Western Digital 160GB hard drive that I had on the shelf from a few years ago, and see if the optical drives would work under XP. My suspicion was that even though my son had installed Win2000 from CD years ago, that the optical drives must have worked then, and it must have booted from CD then, but because he loved to experiment with OSs and dual booting Linux/Win2000, and video and sound cards...blah blah blah, that I needed to start from scratch. With the machine configured as above, I connected this drive to the primary IDE channnel, jumpered slave, and re-jumpered the Win2000 drive from single to master. I started the machine, and Win2000 came up as usual, identifying the slave hard drive as F. I put the XP cd in D, but no auto start. I navigated to cd, and clicked off Setup, and XP setup began. It would not allow me to install XP on/over Win2000 already on C, but did allow me to do and Advanced Install, which I did on F. All went fine, and when done, I had a dual boot system with Win2000 on C, and WinXP on F. When I started the machine, I was presented with the dual boot loader screen, and I could choose either OS. If I chose XP, guess what, my optical drives worked fine, and even auto started audio cds. If I chose Win2000, I was stuck with the problems described above. I really didn't want a dual boot system. I prefer a single boot system with XP. so I started to try to install XP on the new hard drive. But, because the machine won't boot from CD, even when set to do so in the BIOS, I've had to use a Win98SE startup floppy to install a ramdrive, which allows me to read the CD-ROM. If you've read this far, thanks. Ideas: 1. Your connections and/or jumper settings are off. I doubt it, but it can't hurt to double-check. 2. The CD is bad. You can either try it in another PC and see if the other PC can boot off it. Or you can try another bootable CD. 3. The optical drive is bad and should be replaced (that's my hunch). |
#11
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
Boris wrote:
"Twayne" wrote in news:#mfpNxrPKHA.1512 @TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl: "Boris" wrote in message .213 Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. You have to actually boot from the XP CD to do what you want. To do that, you might have to go into your BIOS CMOS System settings (whichever it's calledg) and set the CD to be the first boot device with your hard drive as the second boot drive. That way it'll look for the CD to boot from first and if there is no CD in the drive of if it's not bootable, it'll just boot 2000. When it's working right, during a boot you'll get a prompt like "Press any key to boot from the CD" and a countdown will start, which will put you back into 2000 if you don't press a key before it reaches zero. It's a very round about way to do it using a boot floppy. HTH, Twayne` Hi, Yes, I'm aware that the way to do this is to boot from the XP CD. I've done it many times doing clean installs on other machines. I am familiar with making changes, etc. within a BIOS, I do it all the time. The problem is that this particular machine will not boot from CD. The BIOS allows me to set it to boot from CD, and I've done that, but it simply will not. The original set up was a Win2000 Pro, SP1: A: NEC floppy C: Western Digital 80GB, Win2000, primary IDE channel, jumpered single D: NEC CD-ROM, secondary IDE, jumpered master E: Plextor DVD/R, secondary IDE, jumpered slave The CD-ROM would always read data cds, but about 90% of the time would not read audio cds. If an audio cd were placed in D, it would not auto start Windows Media Player, even though set to do so. If I navigated to D with Windows Explorer, it said please insert a disk in drive D. The DVD/R would never read either data or audio cds. By the way, the BIOS recognizes both optical drives, and even in Device Manager, the optical drives are recognized, and 'working properly'. System Information (Accessories) also reports the optical drives properly. I did uninstall and reinstall the generic Windows drivers (and secondary IDE controller) for these optical drives, but no luck fixing the problems. I decided to install Windows XP Pro on to a larger, Western Digital 160GB hard drive that I had on the shelf from a few years ago, and see if the optical drives would work under XP. My suspicion was that even though my son had installed Win2000 from CD years ago, that the optical drives must have worked then, and it must have booted from CD then, but because he loved to experiment with OSs and dual booting Linux/Win2000, and video and sound cards...blah blah blah, that I needed to start from scratch. With the machine configured as above, I connected this drive to the primary IDE channnel, jumpered slave, and re-jumpered the Win2000 drive from single to master. I started the machine, and Win2000 came up as usual, identifying the slave hard drive as F. I put the XP cd in D, but no auto start. I navigated to cd, and clicked off Setup, and XP setup began. It would not allow me to install XP on/over Win2000 already on C, but did allow me to do and Advanced Install, which I did on F. All went fine, and when done, I had a dual boot system with Win2000 on C, and WinXP on F. When I started the machine, I was presented with the dual boot loader screen, and I could choose either OS. If I chose XP, guess what, my optical drives worked fine, and even auto started audio cds. If I chose Win2000, I was stuck with the problems described above. I really didn't want a dual boot system. I prefer a single boot system with XP. so I started to try to install XP on the new hard drive. But, because the machine won't boot from CD, even when set to do so in the BIOS, I've had to use a Win98SE startup floppy to install a ramdrive, which allows me to read the CD-ROM. If you've read this far, thanks. The machine should boot from cd but if not you can download the XP setup floppies from Microsoft (for whatever reason the floppy images are not on the XP cd) that will get you going the alternative method of using a win98 floppy requires the hard-drive be formatted as fat32 loading smartdrv If you don't load smartdrv the installation will take *many* hours.. and may possibly fail part of the way through then running winnt.exe from the i386 folder and finally converting to NTFS (if desired) I've done it but a major PITA so get the boot floppies from MS IIRC there are four of them and they will allow a cd install if the machine cannot boot from it http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 |
#12
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
If you have a floppy drive in your system, then download bootable floppy
disks from here (read the article first): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 The download site is official Microsoft site so there is no need to be worried about viruses or trojans. Hope this proves useful. Boris wrote: "Twayne" wrote in news:#mfpNxrPKHA.1512 @TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl: "Boris" wrote in message .213 Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. You have to actually boot from the XP CD to do what you want. To do that, you might have to go into your BIOS CMOS System settings (whichever it's calledg) and set the CD to be the first boot device with your hard drive as the second boot drive. That way it'll look for the CD to boot from first and if there is no CD in the drive of if it's not bootable, it'll just boot 2000. When it's working right, during a boot you'll get a prompt like "Press any key to boot from the CD" and a countdown will start, which will put you back into 2000 if you don't press a key before it reaches zero. It's a very round about way to do it using a boot floppy. HTH, Twayne` Hi, Yes, I'm aware that the way to do this is to boot from the XP CD. I've done it many times doing clean installs on other machines. I am familiar with making changes, etc. within a BIOS, I do it all the time. The problem is that this particular machine will not boot from CD. The BIOS allows me to set it to boot from CD, and I've done that, but it simply will not. The original set up was a Win2000 Pro, SP1: A: NEC floppy C: Western Digital 80GB, Win2000, primary IDE channel, jumpered single D: NEC CD-ROM, secondary IDE, jumpered master E: Plextor DVD/R, secondary IDE, jumpered slave The CD-ROM would always read data cds, but about 90% of the time would not read audio cds. If an audio cd were placed in D, it would not auto start Windows Media Player, even though set to do so. If I navigated to D with Windows Explorer, it said please insert a disk in drive D. The DVD/R would never read either data or audio cds. By the way, the BIOS recognizes both optical drives, and even in Device Manager, the optical drives are recognized, and 'working properly'. System Information (Accessories) also reports the optical drives properly. I did uninstall and reinstall the generic Windows drivers (and secondary IDE controller) for these optical drives, but no luck fixing the problems. I decided to install Windows XP Pro on to a larger, Western Digital 160GB hard drive that I had on the shelf from a few years ago, and see if the optical drives would work under XP. My suspicion was that even though my son had installed Win2000 from CD years ago, that the optical drives must have worked then, and it must have booted from CD then, but because he loved to experiment with OSs and dual booting Linux/Win2000, and video and sound cards...blah blah blah, that I needed to start from scratch. With the machine configured as above, I connected this drive to the primary IDE channnel, jumpered slave, and re-jumpered the Win2000 drive from single to master. I started the machine, and Win2000 came up as usual, identifying the slave hard drive as F. I put the XP cd in D, but no auto start. I navigated to cd, and clicked off Setup, and XP setup began. It would not allow me to install XP on/over Win2000 already on C, but did allow me to do and Advanced Install, which I did on F. All went fine, and when done, I had a dual boot system with Win2000 on C, and WinXP on F. When I started the machine, I was presented with the dual boot loader screen, and I could choose either OS. If I chose XP, guess what, my optical drives worked fine, and even auto started audio cds. If I chose Win2000, I was stuck with the problems described above. I really didn't want a dual boot system. I prefer a single boot system with XP. so I started to try to install XP on the new hard drive. But, because the machine won't boot from CD, even when set to do so in the BIOS, I've had to use a Win98SE startup floppy to install a ramdrive, which allows me to read the CD-ROM. If you've read this far, thanks. |
#13
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
"Boris" wrote in message
.213... "Twayne" wrote in news:#mfpNxrPKHA.1512 @TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl: "Boris" wrote in message .213 Hi, I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Many thanks. You have to actually boot from the XP CD to do what you want. To do that, you might have to go into your BIOS CMOS System settings (whichever it's calledg) and set the CD to be the first boot device with your hard drive as the second boot drive. That way it'll look for the CD to boot from first and if there is no CD in the drive of if it's not bootable, it'll just boot 2000. When it's working right, during a boot you'll get a prompt like "Press any key to boot from the CD" and a countdown will start, which will put you back into 2000 if you don't press a key before it reaches zero. It's a very round about way to do it using a boot floppy. HTH, Twayne` Hi, Yes, I'm aware that the way to do this is to boot from the XP CD. I've done it many times doing clean installs on other machines. I am familiar with making changes, etc. within a BIOS, I do it all the time. The problem is that this particular machine will not boot from CD. The BIOS allows me to set it to boot from CD, and I've done that, but it simply will not. There's a pretty simple test to find out if the system is capable of booting from CD (assuming that the CD is actually bootable. Power off, disconnect the hard disk data cables. Set the CD to primary, and reboot. If it won't do that, try the six-floppy boot set. |
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
"Shenan Stanley" wrote in message
Boris wrote: I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Your CD drive and/or the Windows XP CD you are trying to utilize and/or hard disk drive and/or controller and/or cables need to be checked. One of those things is crapping out on you. I base this off your initial posting and all of your follow ups. Going by this and all your other responses - I am supposing you want a 100% clean installation. Windows 2000 and all files will be wiped from the drive - never to return. The prior OS has *no* bearing at this point. Just the fuctionality of the hardware. If your BIOS gives the option to boot from your CD drive, if your CD drive and cables are good, if your hard disk drive and cables are good and if there is no issues with your controller card - all of this should work with nothing more than the Windows XP CD and a few changes in the BIOS and a keyboard/mouse. (Assuming things like the video card allows you to see the screen, of course.) You may have another option, however - although I stand by your need to check the things above (download the Western Digital utilities CD, burn it and run the full diags.) Download and creat the 6-boot Floppy diskettes. Put in the Windows CD, but boot off the floppy diskettes. (You said you have a floppy drive - this is why I suggest this.) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 If after using the 6-boot-diskette option, you still cannot get things installed - there is a hardware failure on the machine - see above... Admittedly - it would be the first time I would have seen anyone use the floppy diskettes with Windows XP Media Center Edition - but since it is just Professional with a few extra features and a few less features... (So get the professional edition CDs.) If this is an MCE system with an on-disk recovery partition, the process becomes a little more complex IF he wants to keep the MCE part of the install. There are almost always one, more likely two, install disks to be used before using the XP disk; the first two are to set up the hidden partition and prep the hard drive to receive the proper files for the recovery operation to function. Proceeding without the first two discs will install XP just fine, but not the MCE portion or the hidden partition where the factory backup lives. Also if the drive has already been formatted completely, the hidden partition may well be long gone anyway. The 6-floppy setup set will likely work OK to get XP installed but not the MCE portio nor the hidden factory partition. The best bet would be to go to the Mfr (even if the machine is an old one) and see if he can get the actual recovery CD set; then everything could run smoothly. Most companies can supply the disc sets for their older machines. So I'd start with the mfr first and then probably the 6-floppy path and just make up my mind the MCE part and hidden partition won't be there. Loss of the MCE capability isn't that much anyway; everything it did is still available to the user, just not as cleanly or as prettily as the MCE made it. At least that's my experience with the MCE's to date on several models and what I've read on other relveant places. Also - SP1 or SP2 - I am unsure if there are SP3 floppy diskettes. Although if this is an original STAMPED CD - you'll likely have one or two and not SP3. Last time I was in that mode all I could find was Gold but that was quite awhile ago. At any rate, yeah, be sure to get the SP's, at least SP2. SP1a or SP2 is required if you want to install SP3 and SP3 was another good step for XP, altough in a few cases some machines can have issues with it. Reading/Using the SP3 install instructios and install requirements at MS will make the installatio go a lot smoother because there are a few caveats, though not a lot. SP3 also requires a substantial amount of disk space during its installation - the install requirements for that and more. To date, all the SP3 install failures I've seen have been "fixed" either by following the MS instructions and/or getting the problems already in XP repaired before trying to install SP3. HTH, Twayne` -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP |
#15
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Installing XP Pro on Hard Drive
"Shenan Stanley" wrote in
: Boris wrote: I'm updating the OS on an old P4, 1.6MHZ. It's currently running Windows 2000 Pro, but I want to install a retail version of Windows XP Pro on it. The problem is that I can't get the machine to boot from CD. All attempts have failed over the last two evenings. I've installed a barely used 160GB Western Digital hard drive as the master, and set to boot from a Windows 98SE startup floppy. The floppy creates a ramdrive D, and I can then log to the CD-ROM, and if the Windows XP CD is in it, I can read all the files just fine. From the floppy I need to fdisk, but there's where my memory fails me. It's been a long time since I've had to use DOS to partition a hard drive. I can't remember if once I creat a primary DOS partition (just one large partition) do I need to set it active? If so, do I reboot first, and then set active, or set active before a reboot? Also, do I then need to format, or should I log on to the Windows XP CD, and run winnt from the i386 folder? I have gotten the message that smartdrv.exe is not on my system. Where can I find this file, and where should I copy it to, before attempting setting up Windows? Your CD drive and/or the Windows XP CD you are trying to utilize and/or hard disk drive and/or controller and/or cables need to be checked. One of those things is crapping out on you. I base this off your initial posting and all of your follow ups. Going by this and all your other responses - I am supposing you want a 100% clean installation. Windows 2000 and all files will be wiped from the drive - never to return. The prior OS has *no* bearing at this point. Just the fuctionality of the hardware. If your BIOS gives the option to boot from your CD drive, if your CD drive and cables are good, if your hard disk drive and cables are good and if there is no issues with your controller card - all of this should work with nothing more than the Windows XP CD and a few changes in the BIOS and a keyboard/mouse. (Assuming things like the video card allows you to see the screen, of course.) You may have another option, however - although I stand by your need to check the things above (download the Western Digital utilities CD, burn it and run the full diags.) Download and creat the 6-boot Floppy diskettes. Put in the Windows CD, but boot off the floppy diskettes. (You said you have a floppy drive - this is why I suggest this.) http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 If after using the 6-boot-diskette option, you still cannot get things installed - there is a hardware failure on the machine - see above... Admittedly - it would be the first time I would have seen anyone use the floppy diskettes with Windows XP Media Center Edition - but since it is just Professional with a few extra features and a few less features... (So get the professional edition CDs.) Also - SP1 or SP2 - I am unsure if there are SP3 floppy diskettes. Although if this is an original STAMPED CD - you'll likely have one or two and not SP3. I finally got it installed after 3 tries, using different tactics. I took nearly 20 pages of notes so I didn't go down the same dead end twice. This version was XP Pro, SP1a, so when finally installed, I also installed SP3 from a CD I had made when SP3 came out. I use it to update all my XP machines. Some info...I did check to see that the XP CD was bootable on another machine, and it was. I also installed a known good CD-ROM in this P4, but the P4 still wouldn't boot from CD. I tried new cables, reinstalled the secondary controller, etc., but nothing worked. Any CD, audio or otherwise, will invoke the the appropriate Windows autoplay program, and I can navigate to the CDs files in Windows Explorer. This indicates that the CD-ROM and cabling is good, but it still won't boot from CD when set to do so in the BIOS. Sounds like BIOS problem to me. What I was trying to do was install XP Pro, SP1a, from CD, onto a (used) Western Digital 160GB, 8MB cache, hard drive. The Gateway P4 already had Windows 2000 Pro installed on an 80GB drive, and was running fine. Here's what worked for me: removed the 80GB drive connected 160GB drive to primary IDE channel,as single drive the only CD-ROM was connected to seconday IDE channel as single drive there is a floppy drive set BIOS to start from floppy, then hard drive put Win98SE Startup disk into floppy started machine Win98SE Startup floppy installed ramdrive executed FDISK and created DOS primary partition on 160 GB hard drive activated DOS partition executed FORMAT created large FAT32 partition put Windows XP Pro CD in CD-ROM logged onto i386 folder executed 'winnt' Windows XP Pro Setup began told me I didn't have smartdrv.exe, and would take a while I continued without smartdrv.exe copied some files, and then took another 2 hours to get to: Then: "The MS DOS portion of Setup is complete Remove floppy A and hit enter. Windows Setup will continue." I removed floppy A Hit Enter I got, "Invalid boot disk, please insert boot disk into A" Floppy was still out I restarted the machine, which was set to boot from hard drive after the floppy C came up C showed: $LDR$ 245,920 $WIN_NT$ ~BT DIR $WIN_NT$ ~LS DIR COMMAND COM 93,880 NTDETECT COM 47,580 NTLDR 233,632 TXTSETUP SIF 454,830 5 file(s) 1,075,842 bytes 2 dir(s) 130,568,660 MB free I restarted and went into BIOS I reset BIOS to boot from IDE I rebooted Windows XP Pro Setup began where it left off allowed me to convert FAT32 to NTFS the machine restarted a few times the Windows XP Pro licensing screen came up! The install finished successfully. My video was poor. When moving windows across the screen, they moved really slow, like they were 'stickey'. My audio was warbly. I installed SP3, and all problems were solved. I made an XP Startup floppy. Machine is working fine, but still won't boot from CD. I could do a reset on the BIOS via a jumper on the motherboard, but think I'll leave well enough alone. |
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