2000 Pro and XP on Same Partition !

[mishchenko]

Hi all --

I have gotten my PC into a big mess. It's a long story, but now I have fresh installs of both Windows XP Pro and Windows 2000 Pro on the same partition (my C: drive, primary partition) running in NTFS.

I already have a WIN2K partition from before (my D: drive, a logical partition). What I'm really trying to do is to wipe the C: drive clean and install Windows XP on there.

How could I do that if C: needs to be bootable (as primary partition) and you can't install Windows XP right off its CD? (my CD is not bootable)

I would appreciate any answers and suggestions. Please let me know ASAP. Thanks in advance.

 

[Buggeroo]

Now, I do not have alot of experience with WinXP yet, but my guess would be that you can do it the same way as with W2K, meaning that you can make the startup disk set.

 

[pbxman]

Im confused - why is your XP CD not bootable?

Try using a windows 98 boot disk and copy smartdrv.exe from the RAMdrive to the boot disk and reboot the computer.(you may have to delete some of the other files on the 98 boot disk to make room for smartdrv). When you get to the a: prompt type smartdrv. Then go to the i386 folder on the xp cd and type winnt.

See if that works - I havent tried it, but it should work.
Let me know what happens..
Pbxman
Systems Administrator

Please let Tek-Tips members know their posts were helpful.

 

[Buggeroo]

I have tried the win98 bootdisk thing with win2k, I don't know about XP, but with w2k it will only install if your c: drive is FAT16 formatted, limiting it to ~2GB which is not desireable (In my oppinion anyway) Still, why not give it a shot, might be different with XP

 

[mishchenko]

I have actually resolved this myself, but thanks for all the answers. Here's how I did it:

1) Downloaded a file from the web that makes a set of 6-disk set for booting Windows XP. I forget the exact URL, but there are a few sites that have these. This particular one was a 4MB file that self-extracted onto 6 blank disks.
2) Formatted C: to NTFS using Partition Magic.
3) Booted directly off those 6 floppies and proceeded to install Windows XP from its CD.
4) Voila! My old Win2K partition is intact and WinXP is now cleanly installed on C: drive. Both run problem-free.