Frustration installing Win XP

[joseph2k]

I have read a lot of posts and scanned lots of headers, google'd some also.
I have a bit of a weird problem:

My old athlon 800 MHz died, would not power up, replacing the power supply
did not help.
So i bought a new mobo with CPU and DDR2 Dram (2GB), the new mobo powers up
and passes POST.
The previous system was Win98SE. I am trying to save the data on the old
hard disks; 1 IDE 1 SCSI. The existing partitioning is a bit strange:

IDE:
9GB disk
8 MB system commander
3.5 GB other OS
Extended partition for the balance
{
1 GB Drive D
2.5 GB Drive E
1.8 GB unformatted / FAT (tried both)
}
and some wasted space

SCSI:
18GB disk
1.9 GB drive C
10.4 GB extended partition
{
1.9 GB drive F
1.9 GB drive G
1.9 GB drive H
!.9 GB drive I
1.9 GB drive J
}
3.4 GB Other OS
and some wasted space

The old W98SE CD is not bootable, and i do not have those boot floppies any
more. My WinXP-SP2 CD cannot deal with the existing partitioning, and will
not format / use the existing (free / formatted empty) space on the IDE
drive. IIRC XP requires a space on the "boot" drive (which was SCSI "C" in
Win98SE), but will not install there, nor will it use the free space or
formatted FAT volume on the IDE disk. I think i may be missing something
but i want to preserve as much as possible of the previous Win98
installation before getting all brute force about it. Disk volume backups
just do not preserve the registry in the same way as an upgrade install.

 

[John John]

Most likely there isn't enough space on any partitions in that mess of
tiny partitions for Windows XP to install itself! If you succeed in
installing XP on such tiny crammed partitions you are bound to run into
serious problems later on due to insufficient space to properly maintain
the operating system.

What are you trying to do? Upgrade Windows 98 to Windows XP? Remove
all drives except the one hosting Windows 98 and try again. That will
eliminated potential conflicts to start and will prevent accidental data
loss on these drives. These drives can be brought online after you have
Windows XP installed and up and properly running.

Quite frankly I think you have an absolute mess on your hands and I
would recommend that you get yourself another drive and do a clean
installation of Windows XP on that new drive then bring the other drives
online after the installation. Or blow all the partitions off one of
the disks you now have and install XP on a decent size partition! I
know that XP can be installed on smaller partitions but I wouldn't think
of installing it on any less than 10 to 15 GB.

John

 

[Hoppy]

I agree with everything John John told you. After my first extrememly
frustrating attempt to install XP, I now allow at least 10GB for an XP
install partition. 9GB will probably work if you want to give up that
data -- that is, if I understand your partitioning scheme correctly.

BTW, you can download a boot disk from http://www.bootdisk.com/.
--
Hoppy
(e-mail address removed)
~~

joseph2k wrote on Sun, 10 Sep 2006 05:12:35 -0700:

I have read a lot of posts and scanned lots of headers, google'd some
also.
I have a bit of a weird problem:

My old athlon 800 MHz died, would not power up, replacing the power
supply
did not help.
So i bought a new mobo with CPU and DDR2 Dram (2GB), the new mobo powers
up
and passes POST.
The previous system was Win98SE. I am trying to save the data on the
old
hard disks; 1 IDE 1 SCSI. The existing partitioning is a bit strange:

9GB disk
8 MB system commander
3.5 GB other OS
Extended partition for the balance
{
1 GB Drive D
2.5 GB Drive E
1.8 GB unformatted / FAT (tried both)
}
and some wasted space

SCSI:
18GB disk
1.9 GB drive C
10.4 GB extended partition
{
1.9 GB drive F
1.9 GB drive G
1.9 GB drive H
!.9 GB drive I
1.9 GB drive J
}
3.4 GB Other OS
and some wasted space

The old W98SE CD is not bootable, and i do not have those boot floppies
any
more. My WinXP-SP2 CD cannot deal with the existing partitioning, and
will
not format / use the existing (free / formatted empty) space on the IDE
drive. IIRC XP requires a space on the "boot" drive (which was SCSI "C"
in
Win98SE), but will not install there, nor will it use the free space or
formatted FAT volume on the IDE disk. I think i may be missing
something
but i want to preserve as much as possible of the previous Win98
installation before getting all brute force about it. Disk volume
backups
just do not preserve the registry in the same way as an upgrade install.

 

[joseph2k]

Well, i have had rather more experience in maintaining machines with very
constrained owner resources (often built out of others (including mine)
cast off's). Here is what i have done so far:

Brought up other OS and used other OS to make FAT volume backups.
Downloaded bootdisks from the site Hoppy pointed to (thanks).
Booted dos 6.22, and started Win98 install. Win98 also refused to deal with
the strange partitioning.
I then unplugged the IDE drive and installed Win98 on the existing C: which
now boots. The 2GB memory is confusing it though and the windows portion
still will not start.
Since I currently have a win98 problem i will go thence.

Thanks for your contributions of time and skills.

I agree with everything John John told you. After my first extrememly
frustrating attempt to install XP, I now allow at least 10GB for an XP
install partition. 9GB will probably work if you want to give up that
data -- that is, if I understand your partitioning scheme correctly.

BTW, you can download a boot disk from http://www.bootdisk.com/.
--
Hoppy
(e-mail address removed)
~~

joseph2k wrote on Sun, 10 Sep 2006 05:12:35 -0700:

I have read a lot of posts and scanned lots of headers, google'd some
also.
I have a bit of a weird problem:

My old athlon 800 MHz died, would not power up, replacing the power
supply
did not help.
So i bought a new mobo with CPU and DDR2 Dram (2GB), the new mobo powers
up
and passes POST.
The previous system was Win98SE. I am trying to save the data on the
old
hard disks; 1 IDE 1 SCSI. The existing partitioning is a bit strange:

9GB disk
8 MB system commander
3.5 GB other OS
Extended partition for the balance
{
1 GB Drive D
2.5 GB Drive E
1.8 GB unformatted / FAT (tried both)
}
and some wasted space

SCSI:
18GB disk
1.9 GB drive C
10.4 GB extended partition
{
1.9 GB drive F
1.9 GB drive G
1.9 GB drive H
!.9 GB drive I
1.9 GB drive J
}
3.4 GB Other OS
and some wasted space

The old W98SE CD is not bootable, and i do not have those boot floppies
any
more. My WinXP-SP2 CD cannot deal with the existing partitioning, and
will
not format / use the existing (free / formatted empty) space on the IDE
drive. IIRC XP requires a space on the "boot" drive (which was SCSI "C"
in
Win98SE), but will not install there, nor will it use the free space or
formatted FAT volume on the IDE disk. I think i may be missing
something
but i want to preserve as much as possible of the previous Win98
installation before getting all brute force about it. Disk volume
backups
just do not preserve the registry in the same way as an upgrade install.