upgrading from uninstalled winME

[Guest]

having difficulties upgrading to win xp home.

after a recent crash i bought a new hard drive and tried reinstalling winME
that came with my gateway pc. it would freeze very early on in the install.
according to my pc manufacturer (gateway) and several other sources, the
consensus is that my windows ME install disk is bad. they also said that...

"If your Win Me CD has a folder called Win 9x containing the file BASE2.CAB
and several other cab files including PRECOPY.CAB, CATALOG.CAB, and others
such as NET3.CAB, DRIVER5.CAB and WIN_8.CAB (total size at least 153MB and at
least 52 files plus probably a folder) then you can use an XP upgrade CD.
You will still be able to clean install XP but will be asked to insert your
Win Me during the installation to verify your eligibility to use the upgrade
version."

by booting with a dos disk and navigating to the cd rom drive i can access
the file structure on the ME disk. i checked and all those files are there
on the cd in the appropriate folder.

so i bought the upgrade cd, and now, when i get to the point where i'm
prompted to enter the winME cd, it keeps saying
"setup cannot find a previous version... please insert your win ME CD"

any alternative ways to install xp?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

If your Windows ME CD is bad, then Windows XP may not
be able to find the files and license necessary. If that is the
case, you'll need a "Full Version" of Windows XP and not
the "Upgrade Version".

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

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:

| having difficulties upgrading to win xp home.
|
| after a recent crash i bought a new hard drive and tried reinstalling winME
| that came with my gateway pc. it would freeze very early on in the install.
| according to my pc manufacturer (gateway) and several other sources, the
| consensus is that my windows ME install disk is bad. they also said that...
|
| "If your Win Me CD has a folder called Win 9x containing the file BASE2.CAB
| and several other cab files including PRECOPY.CAB, CATALOG.CAB, and others
| such as NET3.CAB, DRIVER5.CAB and WIN_8.CAB (total size at least 153MB and at
| least 52 files plus probably a folder) then you can use an XP upgrade CD.
| You will still be able to clean install XP but will be asked to insert your
| Win Me during the installation to verify your eligibility to use the upgrade
| version."
|
| by booting with a dos disk and navigating to the cd rom drive i can access
| the file structure on the ME disk. i checked and all those files are there
| on the cd in the appropriate folder.
|
| so i bought the upgrade cd, and now, when i get to the point where i'm
| prompted to enter the winME cd, it keeps saying
| "setup cannot find a previous version... please insert your win ME CD"
|
| any alternative ways to install xp?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Since you have already opened the XP Upgrade box I don't know if you can get
credit for it against the full version at the store where you bought it, but
I would call and see.

Since you do own the ME cd, perhaps the way out of this is to find someone
with a retail ME or Win98 cd for their computer and borrow it for a couple
of hours. That would get you going and then you can give theirs back to
them. That is not the correct way to handle the licensing but it would
work. I only suggest this because it's not like you have acted in bad
faith. I just hate to see you trying to do the right thing and unable to.