XP Pro to ME

[buzzy1]

I have a question to ask you about my home computer. I was running Windows XP Pro. Well, I have been trying to find some ram for my computer, and according to HP Email Support, my computer will only take PC600 Rambus RAM. This type of RAM is very hard to find. I can find PC 800 and above, but very little PC600 where I can get two chips the same.
Well last night, I unhooked the extra 4GB drive from the computer, deleted the partitions from the c drive, and formatted it. How can I get it to read my Windows ME recovery CD? It will not read it. If I boot from a 98 boot disk, and do a DIR on the CD and see the 5 files that are on it, but when I try to run any of them, it either doesn't respond, or says bad command.
I am trying to get it back to ME so that it will be faster. I don't have the money to buy another motherboard and regular RAM to put in it, and I know when it was running ME, it was much faster than it is right now with XP pro.
I also last night tried to install XP from the I386 folder by running WINNT and it did copy some files to the drive, but it never would do the install. So I tried the Windows 2000 CD, and it worked. So as of right now, I have 2000 on it in FAT32. It still will not read from the ME Recovery cd. How can I get it to read from that CD so I can load ME?

Any help you can offer I would GREATLY appreciate.

Do you have it set in the BIOS to boot from the CD?

Are these origianl CD's or copies of originals or "warez" ?

[buzzy1]

These are origianl CD's. I thought I set that a long time ago, but will check that when I go home for lunch. I think the key for that is F9. What are others I could try if that doesn't work?

DEL, F1, F2, ESC, F10

It should flash up at the bottom of the screen to tell you which one to press.

[Siliconjunkie]

I think you can run 800 in it.

[John Prophet]

If the WinME cd is from another computer...it will restore all the drivers etc and hardware entries for the OTHER computer....so what you need to do after you restore it is boot into safe mode...run "regedit"...and delete the hkey local machine/enum folder.....then reboot.

If you do that it ill make windows re-detect all the hardware in the computer.

If you dont do that it might not boot at all because all of those wrong hardware entries will conflict with the new hardware etc.


if the WinME restore disk CAME WITH this computer...ignore this thread, lol.


JP

[buzzy1]

Siliconjunkie: I have been told that, but I don't want to spend that money, and it not work, then I lose the money I spent in shipping. I have already tried other ram trying to get it to work, and I have loast about $20 bucks paying for the shipping and the restocking fee. (I'll never do that again. :-))

This is what HP says shipped in the box, and what the computer supports: http://h20015.www2.hp.com/hub_search...h06607#P24_389

[Prison Kids]

You might try installing an earlier version of Windows, then insert the ME Cd and upgrade.

[TM12]

I've never heard of not being able to use faster ram than specified but, I'll also say I'm not a P4 user. Maybe someone else can say for sure.

In regards to restoring ME - contact HP or browse their support FAQs. I believe they have part of the default configuration stored on a separate partition like Compaq and it needs to be able to access that data to restore. Since you partioned, the data's gone. HP has to have some method of restoring the computer to the factory condition in case your harddrive failed. Compaq ships restore disks with the replacement drive but they will also sell you the complete disk set separately and I've bought it for two different models. HP probably does something similar. I'd check their site or give them a call.

Originally posted by Prison Kids
You might try installing an earlier version of Windows, then insert the ME Cd and upgrade.

You DO NOT have to have a prior OS installed to use an upgrade disk. You just have to have the media for the previous OS.

What are the 5 files you see on the Me disk? Do you have another PC to put the CD in to see what else is on it?

You also don't install XP by running "WINNT", if it's a bootable CD, it should start the install when it boots from it, same w/ 2K.

Here are some instructions for installing XP from DOS.