Fresh Iinstall of XP

[Guest]

I know this is an easy one...I just do not know the way around it.

I need to make my fresh install of XP bootable. My machine will not boot
unless the Windows XP disk is in the cd drive.

How do I make my hard disk bootable without completely installing XP again.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[philo]

I know this is an easy one...I just do not know the way around it.

I need to make my fresh install of XP bootable. My machine will not boot
unless the Windows XP disk is in the cd drive.

How do I make my hard disk bootable without completely installing XP
again.

You need to go into the bios and be sure one of the boot options is booting
from the harddrive.

If it's already there...try moving it to the very fist position

 

[Guest]

I did that.

When I made it the only boot device it would not boot. I get ..."Insert Boot
Disk, Then hit return"

If I make it second (or first) then it will boot...as long as the Windows XP
disk is in the drive.

If the cd is not in there then it will not boot.

I think the disk actually has to be made bootable. I could do it with a
boot disk if I had a floppy.

Thanks,

Tim

 

[Guest]

Your harddrive needs to be set as primary master and the boot partition has
to be set as active.

Andy W

 

[Guest]

I understand that.

By jumper setting, it is the master. It also has only one partition. It is
an 80GB single partition HD.

Windows XP formatted it. I just figured it would set it to bootable.

Cheers,

Tim

 

[Guest]

Have you checked what the first boot device is in the BIOS, make sure it is
set to HD0 or first boot device is CD-Rom and second device is HD0.

Andy W

 

[Guest]

Yes sir I did.

It is currently set to Hard Disk. And the only HD is the 80GB hard disk I
did a fesh install of XP.

Cheers,

Tim

 

[philo]

I did that.

When I made it the only boot device it would not boot. I get ..."Insert Boot
Disk, Then hit return"

If I make it second (or first) then it will boot...as long as the Windows XP
disk is in the drive.

If the cd is not in there then it will not boot.

I think the disk actually has to be made bootable. I could do it with a
boot disk if I had a floppy.

<snip>

check the bios to see if you have virus protection enabled...
that will prevent writing to the bootsector

anyway...no matter what...the bootsector must not have been written

try booting with your XP cd and from the repair console
try these commands : fixboot fixmbr

 

[John John]

Use the Disk Management tool and make sure that the partition is set as
"Active".

John

 

[Guest]

It is a "system" drive. My old hard drives are "active" however. I just
installed them.

How do I make one "active" and the othere "system"

 

[John John]

Don't bring other drives in the picture at this time! Were these "old"
drives in the pc when you installed XP? No? Well then leave them out
until you resolve the boot problem. If the partition is flaged as the
System volume then it should already be active, you can confirm that by
highlighting the partition then right-clicking it and seeing if the
"Mark Active" option is available.

Confirm that these three files are in the root on the System volume:

ntldr
NTDETECT.COM
boot.ini

If the files are present then follow the advice given by Philo earlier,
re: fixboot & fixmbr. If the files are not present extract them from
the XP cd and place them in c:\.

John

 

[Guest]

After I put the other drives in the system the machine now boots without the
XP cdrom.

The "Set Partitian to Active" option is grayed out. for all drives.

All is well somehow. The other drives are just my video data drives. A 300
GB and 200 GB.

All boots like a champ.

Thanks for your help.

Tim

 

[John John]

Well, if it's fixed I supposed its all that matters. But there is
something fishy about your setup, or you just had the system drive on
the wrong controller.

John