Why isnt XP easy

[scottian]

Not sure if ive got the right forum.

Starting from the top...

I have a mac. I bought a PC cheap. the PC had a 250G hard drive my Mac had 80G. So I swapped the drives reformatted the hard hard from NTFS to HFS and installed OSX on the Mac, no problem.

So i now need to install XP on the PC. Ive bought a copy of XP (home edition i think) and tried to format the drive to NTFS, followed the instal disks setup but as soon as i accept the licence agreement it goes belly up saying Windows has detected a problem with the drive and has shut down to prevent damage to the hard drive. Ive tried everything I can think of to format it, I even tried dos but it states that i cant format removable media. The BIOS see's the drive. If anyone can tell me what i need to do id much appreciate it.

But i have another question. I have an external hard drive, a Lacie usb drive. Is it possible to install XP on it, then boot from it, and format the other drive from there?

"Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children."...Bill Hicks

 

[Paulreg]

When installing Windows Server, you are prompted to supply drivers for non standard drives during the initial setup phase. XP doesn't do this but this does sound simular.
Try pressing F6 before the disk format stadge. You will need the correct driver for that mac disk handy.

 

[Sympology]

When you get the options to format , delete all the partitions first, create a new one, then format. Should sort you out.


Been a long time for me, but pretty sure it's in the main start up section.


Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[assarvahid]

But i have another question. I have an external hard drive, a Lacie usb drive. Is it possible to install XP on it,then boot from it, and format the other drive from there? "
It depends on your bios settings.
if it supports boot from USB,yes you can do this.Secondly I have previously seen that win XP does nat tot include SATA drivers.If your hard has a sata HDD,you need to download the drivers on a floppy and direct win xp to it at the time of installation.

We only start learning,The moment we confess to knowing nothing,

 

[scottian]

Sympology, start up doesnt see the drive, it shows a list of 4 empty slots and asks where i want to install. Even though the bios does see the drive and gives me all the info of it, manufacterer, size, serial number etc.

assarvahid, where would i need to check in the bios to see if it supports usb boot?

thanks for your patience with this

"Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children."...Bill Hicks

 

[twiSSt]

In the bios there is a portion that let's you specify the boot order: CD drive, HD1, HD2, Floppy, USB. If the computer is new (less than three years old) it should boot to USB.

You could probably update the BIOS to do so, check the manufatures site for updates.

Do you have access to another PC that you could stick the drive in and use XP's disc management to format it and then put it back into the new PC?

Twist

===========================================
Everything will be OK in the end.
If it's not OK, then it's not the end

 

[scottian]

Twisst,

Unfortunately i dont have another PC, but i will check the bios tonite, ill see what i can do. cheers to the four of you for the advice, ill let you know if it works

"Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children."...Bill Hicks

 

[Sympology]

it shows a list of 4 empty slots

That sound like it is seeing partitions but not the formating, so it has no idea how to handle them. Check there is no option to delete the partition, you may have to do this 4 times to remove all of them.

there is a bit of software out there called boot and nuke. If you can get that and make a bootable cd or floppy, run that it will completely wipe the drive. you could then try reformatting.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

Only the truly stupid believe they know everything.
Stu.. 2004

 

[scottian]

Sympology,
Excellent stuff, even got a version for Mac. I'll give that a blast. Cheers

"Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children."...Bill Hicks

 

[CAPPBC]

Here is the USB XP Option.

http://www.ngine.de/index.jsp?pageid=4176

 

[Zen216]

If you have a boot disk, (like Hiren's) then boot to dos, FDISK the drive, remove all partitions, and create a new one and mark it active. You should be able to then see it in Windows setup to install XP

 

[BadBigBen]

If the drive in question has the Apple Firmware on it, it may need to be replaced with the regular firmware, before you can use it for windows...

if the FDISK suggestion does not work, then NUKE the drive with DBAN and retry...

and if that does not work, then you probably have the Apple Firmware, and it is preventing the use of the drive as a windows drive...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[scottian]

OK, here we go.

Started the PC, went into the BIOS and set the boot order to start from CD, then restarted. Excellent stuff USB showed up as possible install. When i selected the USB drive to install it told me that there is already a system on the drive, did i want to install over the top. I knew there wasnt a system on the USB drive so i panicked. I shut the PC down, disconnected the USB drive connected it to the Mac and moved all the files off it onto the Mac. Connected it back up to PC and rebooted. Now it doesnt see the USB drive. I havent done anything other than change the start sequence. Why is Windows such a pain?

"Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children."...Bill Hicks

 

[danomac]

As BigBadBen pointed out, Apple has had hardware lock-in for ages.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Mac drives has a different signature and partition table. DBAN is the easiest solution (as mentioned earlier - or just download the Ultimate Boot CD which will have several disk utilities dedicated to that type of task.

Another possibility is grabbing a linux livecd like knoppix which should be able to see Mac drives/partitions.