First, Folks, let me say that I have been spending hours and hours on your site reading and soaking up as much knowledge as I possibly can and am very grateful to all of you who volunteer and share your opinions and expertise, Thanks!
Let me tell you what I've got - and what I want...
AMD T-Bird 1000
40 GB Maxtor HD ( partitioned as c and d )
256 DRAM
16x DVD
12x8x32 CD-RW
Nvidia TNT 64 Video
On board Sound
I had it built about 6 mos ago and was using OEM version of Win ME with d: containing a ghost image of c: drive ( when all was new and perfect )
A few weeks ago I bought an OEM version of XP Professional and installed it so the system would offer a dual boot. (Both FAT 32) I could run ME and XP at my choosing and all appeared fine for the first week or so and then I started to receive several different error messages. In ME I was receiving errors pertaining to Windows Installer and Registry errors, and files not found... In XP I also rec'd registry error messages and errors pertaining to missing .msi files. After reading a great many of the issues and problems revealed on your site I believe part of the problem is that I didn't install XP properly to run on the same hard drive. I don't remember creating another partition for XP to be installed in and I don't think it was or it would have been assigned another drive letter other than C , right? Anyway, due to all the problems I was having with ME I uninstalled it and now only have XP installed. However, I did reinstall XP to correct the problems I was having with it and my HD usage doubled ! Could it be that the other installation was not deleted?
Here's what I would like to do and if anyone could walk me through it in "simple, stupid" terms I would be forever grateful.
ME is an unstable OS (at least it has been for me since day 1 ) but I still need to have it on my system to run some software that I cannot live without that unfortunatley I can't run under XP. I love XP Pro and still want to use that OS for everything else.
I want to clean my hard drive and start fresh. After reading a lot of postings here I think I understand that I can run both OS's on one hard drive as long as they are in their own partition, yes? no? If yes, how do I wipe the slate clean and do it RIGHT? I have both OEM cd's with valid coa numbers and I have a ME startup floppy and I went to the Windows XP help site and made the 6 disk setup floppys. Where do I go from here? Do I put ME and XP in their own primary partitions? Do I create additional extended partitions so I can have some additional space for backup and other programs? "fdisk" "format" "partitions", I'm scared...
Starting with Step 1, can anyone help me? Thanks a bunch.
Let me tell you what I've got - and what I want...
AMD T-Bird 1000
40 GB Maxtor HD ( partitioned as c and d )
256 DRAM
16x DVD
12x8x32 CD-RW
Nvidia TNT 64 Video
On board Sound
I had it built about 6 mos ago and was using OEM version of Win ME with d: containing a ghost image of c: drive ( when all was new and perfect )
A few weeks ago I bought an OEM version of XP Professional and installed it so the system would offer a dual boot. (Both FAT 32) I could run ME and XP at my choosing and all appeared fine for the first week or so and then I started to receive several different error messages. In ME I was receiving errors pertaining to Windows Installer and Registry errors, and files not found... In XP I also rec'd registry error messages and errors pertaining to missing .msi files. After reading a great many of the issues and problems revealed on your site I believe part of the problem is that I didn't install XP properly to run on the same hard drive. I don't remember creating another partition for XP to be installed in and I don't think it was or it would have been assigned another drive letter other than C , right? Anyway, due to all the problems I was having with ME I uninstalled it and now only have XP installed. However, I did reinstall XP to correct the problems I was having with it and my HD usage doubled ! Could it be that the other installation was not deleted?
Here's what I would like to do and if anyone could walk me through it in "simple, stupid" terms I would be forever grateful.
ME is an unstable OS (at least it has been for me since day 1 ) but I still need to have it on my system to run some software that I cannot live without that unfortunatley I can't run under XP. I love XP Pro and still want to use that OS for everything else.
I want to clean my hard drive and start fresh. After reading a lot of postings here I think I understand that I can run both OS's on one hard drive as long as they are in their own partition, yes? no? If yes, how do I wipe the slate clean and do it RIGHT? I have both OEM cd's with valid coa numbers and I have a ME startup floppy and I went to the Windows XP help site and made the 6 disk setup floppys. Where do I go from here? Do I put ME and XP in their own primary partitions? Do I create additional extended partitions so I can have some additional space for backup and other programs? "fdisk" "format" "partitions", I'm scared...
Starting with Step 1, can anyone help me? Thanks a bunch.