Im new to all this. So if any one can reply please spell it out in Laymans terms:

I received a PC from a friend. Just to confuse things there are 2 hard drives in it. It Had Windows ME loaded on but because of all the other rubbish that was also loaded on I decided to format my Hard Drive. I managed to load ME back on but couldnt change the display resolution. I tried loading the monitor drivers on from CD (Samsung Syncmaster 172V) but got an error with monsetup and a dirapi.dll file (god knows what that means)
I thought Id be clever and upgrade to Windows XP Home which i borrowed off a friend.
Worked out the Windows XP doesnt boot from a setup disk but somehow managed to get Windows XP (the display resolution was fine with XP) and Windows ME loaded on at the same time so when I start the PC it asks which OS to run.

I tried again, firstly I wanted to format both hard drives. All i wanted was WIndows XP on.
Drive C: formatted fine but Drive D: didnt. I think during the installation I created a partition. I need to remove the partition and dont know how???
As for loading on just Windows XP
Having searched Google (good ol' Google) I need to change the BIOS to boot from a CD first. HOw do i do that? Press del during the loading. Can get the BIOS screen or whatever its called up. Found the part for changing boot sequence. What do i change it to and when do i have to change it back??

Thanks for any help

Vicky

Hey Vicky, welcome to the boards!

Right, it sounds like starting again from scratch would be the best option (sorry). You've got the right idea, format the disk & install. But something's gone wrong. You're now stuck with partitions & stuff, let's get rid of them!

You'll need a boot floppy for some of this. If you don't have ME, download a boot-disk-creator from www.bootdisk.com. Restart the computer with the floppy in. Wait. Wait some more. Yup now it's okay.

fdisk is the command you need - it recreates a hard-disk partition table. You will need Large Disk support. You'll hit 3 to enter the Delete Partition menu, and delete anything you can. Once you've erased all, hit 1 to create a DOS Partition, and 1 again for a Primary partition (one that you can boot from). Also set it active.

Next you can run your Windows XP installer, either by (staying in the boot disk) navigating to the i386 folder of the CD & running "winnt" or trying to boot from the CD.

For the boot-up sequence, you need to reorder the list so that CD is over harddisk. Save the changes & it'll reboot, to have the install CD in the drive & see if it boots. You don't have to change it back, but after the install is a good time.

GF

Thanks for the reply. Im having a blonde moment (i have a lot of them!!) Bit confused with the fdisk and large disk support. What do i type in at the prompt. a:\ fdisk c??? Im a real novice at all this and have only picked up everything in the last 2 days!!
Not worryed about starting from scratch. Its been formatted about 15 times since i got it. It should be able to do it by itself soon!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ive got a Windows ME boot disk that i made before i originally wiped it. Is that the one i need?

Bit confused (again!!) with "Next you can run your Windows XP installer, either by (staying in the boot disk) navigating to the i386 folder of the CD & running "winnt".

how??????????????? I think ill try with changing the boot order first and see how i get on. When it starts loading ive read it starts asking questions about partitions and stuff in FAT32 and NTSE. All i want is XP on the C drive, the rest of it and the D drive for storage of data.

Why cant Bill Gates make it easy!!!!!!!!!

Thanks
vicky

OK, don't worry. I work at a job where I do stuff like this 10 times a day, so I do tend to go too fast. For only 2 days experimentation, you're doing very well.

The Windows ME boot disk will be perfect. Boot from it, you'll get a command prompt:
C:>
Type in "A:" to change to the floppy drive, and type in "fdisk" - nothing else:
A:>fdisk
The fdisk program has a kinda interface, all you've to do is press the number keys to select the option you wnat. It's quite easy. Then do as I've described above to delete all the types of partition you have & create one single primary partition.

There's 2 ways you can install windows. One is by booting from the CD. But if you've an old computer which doesn't support this, you can use the boot floppy & run "D:\i386\winnt" - they pretty much do the same thing.

Since you're booting nicely from the CD, don't worry about the alternative. Everything appears to be going fine for you. You need to select the partition to install windows - choose the C: drive.

And then it asks you if you want to keep the FAT filesystem or upgrade to NTFS. Here's a bit of geek-speak, so I'll explain.

Filesystems are how data is stored on the harddisk. They keep a log of where files are kept, their filenames, the folders they're in, date created, read only etc.

As usual with computers, there's no single option. The older version is called FAT (or FAT32), used since the dark days of DOS and Windows 95. Does everything above but nothing special. Is a bit slow & inefficient, and doesn't recover well if disaster happens (touch wood).

NTFS is new & better. It is faster & more stable, supports many new features like compression of files, permissions (who can read my files), encryption & improved error correction. Disadvantage: cannot be seen by a DOS boot floppy.

I recommend you choose NTFS! Once you've chosen this, it'll never bother you again!

I don't think there's anything else of significance in the install. Good luck with it!
GF

Thanks

Its not a new PC but its not old either. Not sure the spec of it.

Wont boot from CD. I got it loaded on last time by having ME installed. Once ME desktop had loaded i put in XP cd and installed it...then it all went wrong as I had both OS loaded on.

Thanks for the "simple" instructions. Ill try tonight. Hopefully i wont throw the PC out the window!!

OK well the installation of XP went well, until after start up I still had stuff on my other hard drive. Tried the whole delete partitions, change BIOS and stuff again and have now only got 1 hard drive (god knows what i done)

any solutions??

Couldnt get the modem working either, even though it worked before on M.E. I guess ive got some conflicting settings somewhere. Get the error message 720.

Any help would be grately appreciated

Thanks

Do you have 2 seperate physical hard drives in your machine or one? The words 'drive' and 'partition' do tend to get mixed up.

If only 1, and you followed my instructions, then you should only have a single C: partition. Check the size of it. Does this agree with how big you suspect it to be?

If you actually do have 2 hard disks, they're not easily lost, so I dunno what has happened.

It is handy having 2 seperate partitions, it just takes a little work (playing with fdisk again & yet another reinstall, sadly). There is a tool called Partition Magic which can do all this without destroying your data, very useful if you have access to it.


As for your Modem problem, has it got a Yellow question mark beside it in the Device Manager (right-click My Computer, select Properties, click the Hardware Tab & hit Device Manager)? Or do you get this error while dialing up? If that is the case, it's not your modem's fault, but the settings you're using to connect to your ISP.

Find your ISP's connection in Dial-Up-Networking/Network Connections folder, right-click & hit properties. Most ISPs only use the TCP/IP protocol, so only have that one selected. Maybe have a fiddle & see. There's good advice here:
www.modemsite.com
Also I've heard that the XP Service Pack 1 does help some people with this, but (a) it's massive, a good 50MB, and (b) you've got no net connection!

Hope this helps
GF

When I installed WIndows XP it couldnt install the file TCPIP.SYS. I guess this is to do with TCP/IP and the internet. Probably why the internet isnt working.

Does anyone know why it wouldnt install and what I can do to sort it?

Bit worried that Ive stumped a computer expert who does it for a living. Ive got no hope.

There are 2 actual physical Hard drives on the PC. I might look into just buying a new large hard drive and do away with the 2. I guess thats possible?

No the modem hasnt got a yellow question mark. It dials, verifys password and then comes up with Error 720: Registering with network connection....blah blah.

I wish. I'm a Maths student with a summer job in a computer software localisation company - I do a lot of installs of different OSes in various languages, and encounter manys a strange occurance!

The only way I can see you loosing a hard-drive is by accidentally changing a setting in the BIOS. Try entering the BIOS & see if there's any mention of 2 hard drives. If there is, it's a Windows problem.

If there's no mention in the BIOS, you could try this: I'm sure you've got an autodetect option in there. First with a pen & paper, try taking down all info that you see on relating to the HDs on the screen, should it not go well. Then try the autodetect & see if it comes up with anything.

If 2 hard drives are there in the BIOS, try booting from the bootdisk & see if it sees a C: drive (in XP, the C: drive is there - but it's of type NTFS, which as I've said cannot be seen by a boot disk. So if there's another drive there, C: should be viewable) by typing "C:" - no quotes.

Windows has a good hard drive manager app, if you go to Start->Settings->Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management. Select Disk Management & see how many hard drives it sees. Fiddle around if there is a Disk1 (Your working Hard Drive is Disk0) & see if anything works.

It's hard to diagnose problems like this without being at the machine. So any information your give us (there are more people here .. somewhere...) will be valuable. We'll get this fixed yet!

That missing tcpip.sys file would definately cause big problems for logging onto the net. You should try "Add/Remove Programs" and "Add/Remove Windows Components", select "Networking Services" and reinstall TCP/IP services (remove, reboot then reinstall). That should help.

It'd be a waste of money to throw away a good hard disk until we see for sure it's working or not.
Good luck!
GF