I think I messedup...

[Guest]

I replaced a hard drive in an older Dell 4100 yesterday, and attempted to
install Windows XP Home Edition (was an upgrade, but had the original OS
disk). Most of the way through, I got an error that said that some file
couldn't be found, and installation would be compromised (something like
this). It then hung up in the "Installing Windows XP", where it told me that
there were 39 minutes remaining, but for a lot longer than that. I shut the
whole thing down
This morning, I thought I would just start over again from the beginning,
booting from the CD, going through the whole process. I think this is where
I made my mistake -- rather than repairing, I installed new, and I beleive I
now have two copies of the Windows XP OS that are conflicting.
How can I check this, and if I did do this, how do I get restarted? Will
I have to use DBAN?
Thanks, SteveW

 

[Noozer]

I replaced a hard drive in an older Dell 4100 yesterday, and attempted to
install Windows XP Home Edition (was an upgrade, but had the original OS
disk). Most of the way through, I got an error that said that some file
couldn't be found, and installation would be compromised (something like
this). It then hung up in the "Installing Windows XP", where it told me
that
there were 39 minutes remaining, but for a lot longer than that. I shut
the
whole thing down
This morning, I thought I would just start over again from the beginning,
booting from the CD, going through the whole process. I think this is
where
I made my mistake -- rather than repairing, I installed new, and I beleive
I
now have two copies of the Windows XP OS that are conflicting.
How can I check this, and if I did do this, how do I get restarted? Will
I have to use DBAN?

During the installation you have the opportunity to delete and create
partitions. This is usually where I wipe the drive before installing.

If this were me, and I did end up with two installs, I'd just do the install
again and be sure to delete/create the partitions during the installation.

What makes you think you have two installations on your disk?

 

[peter]

Start..........run..........type in msconfig...........click the boot.ini
tab......click check all boot paths.
how many does it show??
take note on the location and edit boot.ini with notepad to delete the line
pointing to the one that is not working
peter

 

[Guest]

Thanks! One more question..how do I know which one is working??

 

[Guest]

I'm not real sure, but it's acting odd...I was having trouble before, and a
trusted source suggested replacing the HD -- it was running way too
much...while nothing appeared to be going on, etc.

I'm not real sure of the symptoms wen there are two installations, but when
I ran the install the second time, the total space on the disk was about 8GB
less than the first time...

I'll try your suggestion...Thanks for the time

 

[Guest]

I just checked the boot.ini -- tried the "check booth paths" - box is blank...