[roxybaby]

First off, sorry if this belongs in the WinME forum, I wasn't sure since i'm in the middle of changing.

I'm using the holiday weekend to upgrade a Dell Dimension from WinME to XP. I'm following the steps this forum has provided. I set my BIOS to boot from the CD first. When the computer restarted with the installation CD in one of my CD-ROM drives, the working light for both CD-ROM drives came on, but then Windows loaded normally.

I tried running the compatibility tester that is on the installation CD in Windows. When I did, I got two messages.

First:


Then:


Does this I mean I need a newer installation CD? Is there somewhere I can burn a CD that would work with ME? Or is there something else I am doing wrong?

Thanks for your time and help.

Edited by roxybaby, 30 June 2006 - 12:28 PM.

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In the meantime, a friend of mine recommended I use Dell's computer evaluation tool. I did, and it said I need to upgrade my BIOS (current version - A07). Before I do something as major as this, I just want to make sure that it really is why my XP disk won't boot at startup and that it really is necessary. Also, will the updated BIOS still work with Win ME?

Thanks again.

[roxybaby]

In the meantime, a friend of mine recommended I use Dell's computer evaluation tool. I did, and it said I need to upgrade my BIOS (current version - A07). Before I do something as major as this, I just want to make sure that it really is why my XP disk won't boot at startup and that it really is necessary. Also, will the updated BIOS still work with Win ME?

Thanks again.

[SRX660]

Does your dell computer have a pentium 3 1 gig processor? This is the minimum processor i would install XP on. Even then i consider XP to be slow on these computers.

The second thing is that you must have the retail version of the XP cd. Unlike the upgrade version the retail version is meant to install on a blank hard drive. It does not like installing over another windows install.

Heres a good read on installing XP.

http://www.winsupers...g_9xupgrade.asp

Use the windows upgrade advisor to see what you need.

http://www.microsoft...ng/advisor.mspx

heres a clean install by Paul Thurrott.

http://www.winsupers...xp_sg_clean.asp

For various reasons i do not suggest doing BIOS upgrades unless you really know exactly what you are doing. It would be better to let a good computer shop upgrade your bios if that is what you need to install XP on your computer.

SRX660