Help! Knackered my mothers computer! :o(

[deejayellie]

Hi All,

I am no expert on computers, but can normally find my way round...

My mother has a 3 year old tiny computer which came preinstalled with Windows XP. She was having problems with her hard disk, so I installed a new one but as the computer was preinstalled with XP, I didnt have a disk to use on it in order to reinstall XP.

I have an old Windows ME disk, which I installed to see if it would work. It did - hooray! My local computer shop said they could make me up a disk of XP Home to install on the computer as it did come preinstalled and all I'd need to put in is the product key on the side of the pc.

OK, next time I was at my mothers, I forgot the XP Home disk. However, a friend of mine has XP Professional and I borrowed her disk. However, as hers is professional and my mothers is home it wouldn't accept my mothers product key, so I tried it with my friends. (I know, bad me!) I told my mother I would reinstall XP Home next time I was visiting.

Four weeks later, her computer is going good guns, no problems apart from messages coming up saying that it cant run updates. I put this down to it being on my friends copy of professional, and tell her I can fix this by installing home...which I did and this is where the sh1t hits the fan.

Wouldn't allow to me install and scrubbed the professional. Left with a computer not working and an extremely ****ed off sister and mother who said the computer would've been ok if I'd left it alone. I've reformatted, deleted partions but to no avail. I've had the hard disk tested and its working fine, so thats not the problem.

However, tonight I tried to install ME again (nothing to loose!) and it seemed to work ok, apart from each time I switch on, its saying BOOT FAILURE, SYSTEM HALTED. This is rectified by putting in the ME disk and rebooting, as it then asks whether to boot from hard disk or CD. When I say hard disk, it boots no problems. (Why can't it do this when it switches on itself???)

Where the hell do I go from here? Its late thursday night and its GOT to be working by Sunday when the family are all trooping through here for my daughters christening? I live 100 miles from the rest of the family and told them I'd have it working with XP Home for them by then. Please can anyone help?!?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[someblackguy7130]

go to shop, buy a copy of xp home (if u got money like 100 bux to spend otherwise u gotta wait till next time u go to ur moms) then reformat disk, install fresh copy is what i prob wuld do.

 

[Techy]

it's probably knacked now because it has remenents of XP still on the hard disk.

if you remove ALL partitions from the disk then reinstall ME it should work (as well as ME can work anyway!), the problem will lie with the MBR.

 

[timelordross]

your pc is screwed

 

[floppybootstomp]

your pc is screwed

That was helpful wasn't it?

I think the best thing you can do here is go and buy a copy of Win XP Pro.

Then when you boot from the CD it will offer the option to format.

And you can get updates and it will run fine. But it'll cost you.

Failing that, you need some third party software to format the hard disk and then install your copy of XP Home. That's probably the cheaper option.

This may help, by erasing the hard drive.

What you need is a small disc management program that boots from a floppy or CD that enables you to format the hard drive.

I can't think of any offhand, perhaps somebody else can help.

Good luck.

 

[Me__2001]

try the ultimate boot disk