XP over 2000

  • Thread starter Thread starter Bob & Gail
  • Start date Start date
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Bob & Gail

I recently installed XP Pro on my 2nd Partition (D Drive) to test whilst
still having 2000 Pro on the 1st Partition (C Drive). When everything worked
OK I installed XP (New Installation with format) on the C Drive. Everything
worked until I removed the copy of XP from the D Drive and the Computer
wouldn't boot. I found it's always looking for boot.ini etc on the D Drive.
When I go into Recovery Console it says I have one copy of XP on D:/WINDOWS
but everything is on the C Drive. It seems the C Drive is Partition 2 while
the D Drive is Partition 1. Is there any way of making XP see itself
correctly without having to start all over again.
 
what you need to do first is install windows me. after
you do that the rest of the setup should go fine
 
I was hoping not to have to do a new Install. I do not have ME but I have a
copy of 2000 Pro and of course XP Pro. Everything works fine but I would not
be able to remove the files from the D Drive which could become a pain or a
mistake one day.
 
from the wonderful said:
I recently installed XP Pro on my 2nd Partition (D Drive) to test whilst
still having 2000 Pro on the 1st Partition (C Drive). When everything worked
OK I installed XP (New Installation with format) on the C Drive. Everything
worked until I removed the copy of XP from the D Drive and the Computer
wouldn't boot. I found it's always looking for boot.ini etc on the D Drive.
When I go into Recovery Console it says I have one copy of XP on D:/WINDOWS
but everything is on the C Drive. It seems the C Drive is Partition 2 while
the D Drive is Partition 1. Is there any way of making XP see itself
correctly without having to start all over again.
Click to expand...

It's not incorrect, just 'unusual'. What happened was when you formatted
and installed on the (old) C: drive, WInXP install saw the existing
(old) D: partition, and assigned C: to that partition, and then used D:
for the partition it was installing on .. it'll do that, every time (it
will also assign drive letters to zip drives, card readers, etc.. so you
might have wound up with F or G!).

So yes, WinXp now thinks the first partition on the drive is D:, and
this is written in to the registry. There is a fix, but it's fraught
with danger and potential problems .. while Windows itself is supposed
to reference everything relative to %SystemDrive% and %SystemRoot%,
other things tend to write specific drive letters into the registry, and
changing the drive letter causes them to die, horribly.

see:
http://www.dougknox.com/tips/xp_drive_letters.htm

if you want to take the risk (seems like you may not have much to lose),
or else just live with an unusual layout of drive letters.
 
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