Ontario said:
I replaced the motherboard in my system and it wouldn't boot.
Normally, and assuming a retail license (many factory-installed OEM
installations are BIOS-locked to a specific chipset and therefore not
transferable to a new motherboard - check yours before starting), unless
the new motherboard is virtually identical (same chipset, same IDE
controllers, same BIOS version, etc.) to the one on which the WinXP
installation was originally performed, you'll need to perform a repair
(a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least:
How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341
The "why" is quite simple, really, and has nothing to do with
licensing issues, per se; it's a purely technical matter, at this point.
You've pulled the proverbial hardware rug out from under the OS. (If
you don't like -- or get -- the rug analogy, think of it as picking up a
Cape Cod style home and then setting it down onto a Ranch style
foundation. It just isn't going to fit.) WinXP, like Win2K before it,
is not nearly as "promiscuous" as Win9x when it comes to accepting any
old hardware configuration you throw at it. On installation it
"tailors" itself to the specific hardware found. This is one of the
reasons that the entire WinNT/2K/XP OS family is so much more stable
than the Win9x group.
As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.
This will also probably require re-activation, unless you have a
Volume Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than
120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the Internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.
I ran the windows istallation disk and it installed another OS.
I can see the 2 systems in my files, but cannot make the computer boot to
my original system with all my files and programs in it.
System restore doesn't help.
On start-up I can select either system, but neither have old programs.
Please help
What you have now done is to create a dual-boot scenartio, with both
operating systems in the same partition. Therefore, none of your
applications will be available in WinXP until you install them.
What you did do was to create a very unstable situation. Under
normal circumstances, placing two operating systems in the same
partition, as you have done, is a recipe for disaster. A careful,
knowledgeable specialist can do this safely for a short period of time,
but the ordinary PC user had better be backing up his data hourly, as a
catastrophic failure is a matter of "when," rather than "if."
At this point, you safest course of action would be to back up your
data, boot from the WinXP CD and format the hard drive, and then perform
a clean installation of the OS.
--
Bruce Chambers
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