Windows XP to Windows 2000

[tyson]

I have been using Windows XP Home Edition since the day it
was released. It is a good OS, but I would like to try
Windows 2000 Professional for a while. How do I go about
formatting my hard disk (which is NTFS) and installing
2000? I have tried booting to the 2000 Pro CD, but I get
nothing. I have also booted with a 98 Boot Disk, deleted
non-dos partitions and then typed "d:/i386/winnt.exe", but
it gave me some message saying it could not find any
partitions larger than 212 MB. SO, how can I format in NTFS
and install 2000 Pro?
***
P.S.-

I have set my computer to boot in this order
CDROM...FLOPPY...HARD DISK.

I am not getting any "Press any key to boot from CD..."
message as I have with XP (which I have installed at least
10 different times on various machines).

I have made the four boot floppy disks from the
makebt32.exe app on the 2000 CD in Windows.

I am able to boot from them, load all the files (from all
four disks) but then I get a "Hard Error" Message stating
something about ntdll.exe (or .dll).

In another forum (www.geek.com's message parlor), one
member told me to Boot to the Windows XP CD, partition and
format the hard disk, and then restart the computer before
it starts copying files. For some reason, this just seems
as if it would not work.

Thank you in advance for all of your help!
Tyson

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

If you want to "downgrade" WinXP to an earlier OS, you're certainly
entitled to do so, as long as you've purchased a legitimate copy of
that earlier OS. (Although I can't imagine why you'd want to.)

Before proceeding, though, you'd better take a few minutes to see
if there are any device drivers for the older OS available for the new
machine. There may not be, if the PC was specifically designed by its
manufacturer for WinXP. Also, check with the PC vendor to determine
whether or not replacing the pre-installed OS will void your warranty
and/or any service agreement(s), as normally the case.

To replace WinXP with an earlier OS, you'll have to boot from the
appropriate boot disk, format the hard drive, and install. There is
no supported downgrade path or technique.

Simply boot from the Win2K installation CD. You'll be offered the
opportunity to delete, create, and/or format the system partition as
part of the installation process. (You may need to re-arrange the
order of boot devices in the PC's BIOS to boot from the CD.)


Bruce Chambers

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