[wannabe1]

Guess my memory is a little off...

Let's get at it the old fashioned way. We need to remove the "Read Only" attribute from the file before we can edit it.

Open Drive C:. Do you see a file named boot? If no, click "Tools" on the toolbar and choose "Folder Options". Click on the "View" tab. Locate and remove the tick from "Hide protected operating system files" and tick the box by "Show hidden files and folders". Apply the change.

Let me know if you can see the file.

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boot.ini and BOOT.BAK

I have boot.ini open now and it's not read only anymore

[nailpipe]

boot.ini and BOOT.BAK

I have boot.ini open now and it's not read only anymore

[wannabe1]

Replace what's in there with the red text below. Then click "File" on the toolbar and choose "Save".

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Close all open windows and reboot. Check two things when you do this.

• That it boots to win2000 by default (make no selection from the options...just let it boot)
• If it will boot to win XP (you'll have to restart to do this...select XP from the boot options)

Let me know how things go.

[nailpipe]

1. Yes, Windows 2000 runs by default

2. No, XP still freezes.

[wannabe1]

Hmmm.

Let's do a fresh install of XP to D:

I've got a machine here I can set up to try this on and will do so in the morning. I'd like to do it successfully on the test machine before I walk you through it. I'll post full instructions for you as soon as I've got a dual boot running here. Guess I need to have a win2000 machine around here anyway...judging by my memory lapses tonight...

[nailpipe]

Hehe, sounds great. Thank again you for your help.

[wannabe1]

Ok...I have a running dual boot system...

Open the boot.ini file and remove the following line...then save it and close the window:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

=====================

Open the D: partition, right click on the Windows folder and choose "Delete"....accept the change.

Before we go any further, are there files on the drive (D:) that you need to keep?

[nailpipe]

Yes, everything we would need to keep is on the D drive.

[wannabe1]

Do you have enough room on the C: drive to move your data there temporarily? It would be nice if we could format the D: partition before we install. If you think that would be impossible, we'll go ahead a try the install without messing with the file system.

[nailpipe]

Ive moved the files we want and C now has 400MB free, so.. is that okay for now?

[wannabe1]

How large is the D: drive in total? We're going to need almost all of the free space you have just for the operating system...you'll need more than that if you want to install any programs on it.

[nailpipe]

C Drive is 58.5 GB total and has 511 MB free, before I copied the files from D it had about 25 Gigs free
D Drive is 53.1 GB total and has 17.1 GB free on it now (the files i moved to C are copied, so i havent deleted the originals yet.)

Isnt the D drive what we're going to put XP on?

Edited by nailpipe, 20 January 2008 - 06:34 PM.

[wannabe1]

Yup...we'll be installing to D:...and you have plenty of room.

If there is nothing on the drive you need to keep, we'll format it before we install XP Pro to it.

Give me a few minutes and I'll type out the instructions...

[wannabe1]

Put the XP Pro cd in the cd-rom drive and restart the machine. Watch for the prompt to "Press any key to boot from cd" and press the spacebar when you see it.

When you get to the "Welcome to Setup" screen, press Enter to install XP.

Accept the License Agreement by pressing F8

The next screen should show you any operating systems installed on the machine...you should have only one on the C: partition. You'll want the second option there...Press Esc to continue installing a fresh copy of Windows.

Then you should see a screen that lists both partitions as C: and D:...use the arrow keys to select the D: partition. Press D to delete the partition...you may be asked to accept this by pressing L...do so if you are prompted.

This should take you to a screen that now shows the C: partition and an Unpartitioned space. Use the arrow keys to select the unpartitioned space and press Enter.

The formatting options screen will let you choose how you want to format...use the full NTFS option...not the quick one...press Enter.

This should begin the formatting process which will take a while. Once the partition has been formatted, Setup should begin installing the operating system to that partition.

You will not have access to the machine during this time, so if you don't have another machine to stay in touch here...print the instructions out.

[nailpipe]

I did everything and I was away a few hours while it formatted and installed windows XP. When i got back it was on a blue screen that said at the bottom "Restarting computer" but after a few minutes of waiting nothing happened, no keys worked so I hit restart on the computer itself.

The Windows XP load screen froze just as it always has. The D drive has nothing but a Windows folder with a bunch of stuff in it though, so I guess that worked..