will there be any problems? 2K->XP

[extreme_gamer]

hello....

i just received a Maxtor 80GB 7200RPM 8MB cache hard drive. right now i have three partitions:

C: 10GB unformatted, D:20GB formatted with win2k installed, E: 50GB unformatted

for some reason i couldnt get XP pro to load when i turned on the computer, so i decided to just install win2k first on D and then install XP pro to C.

then i'd just remove win2k. how should i go about removing win2k? just format that partition? by the time i format i'll have XP pro running.

and isnt there some problem that when i get rid of 2k i'll still have that option to boot up with it? so then i'd have to do fdisk mbr right?

thanks for your help!

[AzKidd69]

yea yyou are on the right track. I presume you are oging to load XP install while in @K??

then install XP to C:??


if so go ahead and do that.. then when you decide XP is stable and you have what you need from the 2k install transfered over you can format D: from inside XP...

then one more step to fix the boot options menu...

go to my computer C: (maybe on D: tho)
you needto show hidden and system file thru folder options then open up a file called "boot.ini" and remove the WHOL line that ends in "Windows 2000 professional"

[Mickwish]

Are you sure XP will run on your PC? If it wouldn't start from CD, maybe their is a compatibility problem. Try running the CD from within 2K and run the compatability wizard first.

Cheers
Mick

[elmers]

Might be a mess to uninstall 2k after xp is installed. Is there no way to do a fresh install of xp?

[jmichna]

What errors did you encounter when trying to install XP?

[meese]

Before you do anything make sure of these things:

1) The pagefile
2) boot.ini
3) ntldr
4) NTDETECT.com

Are on D here is what I would do:

Go to disk manager and remove c and e. Then change d to c. Now you have w2k on the c partition and there should be 60GB of unallocated space. I personal just did a claen install of w2k and added the programs to it that I wanted. Then UPgraded it to XP. It went smooth. W2k and XP are more alike then say win98. I would never update win98 tp xp and I would have rather installed XP clean, but I got xp after I already installed w2k and I was curious how an upgrade would go. It worked great.

Now if you do it some other way make sure of the stuff I post above or or you'll be bald if you have hair and if you don't, it will grow back.


Are located on the D: drive

If you need more detailed help post back

[extreme_gamer]

my error message was "operating system not found". i tried that a few times and then the 2k disc. i didnt have that problem with the 2k disk for some reason or another.

if my plan did not work i would have just formatted. last night i installed 2k on D:, got everything working there. next i put the xp pro disc in and i got the autorun menu to use. so i selected install and xp Did install. now when i boot up, i dont even HAVE a boot option for 2k. so i'll format D: after school and see what happens. dont even have to mess with the boot.ini file it seems!

until later~~~~

*edit* good timing on your post. i unfortunately have to leave but will take into consideration what you said, Thanks.

[meese]

Ahhh!! you may see my son.

Go here http://www.ats.iup.edu/Minasi/2001.pdf and select newsletter 18, scroll down and read the section on Mirroring details: Making W2K Boot disks and the truth about eide arc paths.

You will be enlightened

[Bill in SD, CA]

Very interesting.

Will any NT based boot.ini file work?

Bill

[meese]

All a boot file is is a text file with an ini extension. The contents depends on the OS (or OS's) and where they are located. Thats where understanding the section:

(multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micr osoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect)

will payoff big time when dual booting or having boot problems. One thing that you must remember is that win98,95 and Me CANNOT be installed on any partition but the first. You can't install xp or w2k and then expect to install win98. So if you ever have plans on multibooting with 98 as one of the OS's, ALWAYS load it first.