XP HOME TO XP PRO UPGRADE

[dkel22]

I am trying to upgrade a XP Home addition PC to XP PRO using a standard XP Pro Disk. The setup will start correctly and allow me to select UPGRADE but when it starts it will give the error "cannot read or write to drive C. If you have a virus scanner running, disable it and try again" I checked and disabled all virus scanning software (we use McAfee Pro) and I still continue to get the same error. I have run disk cleanup and disk defrag and still keep getting the same error. Any suggestions?

 

[ASG0856]

Are you starting the upgrade from within windows or direct from boot up? it may be XP is blocking the upgrade (for the same reasons that don't allow checkdisk to fix errors whilst windows is running) or you are not an administrator on the computer

 

[c1utch]

If you're doing an upgrade, you can boot from the XP Pro CD. If you've got all your data from your Windows Home PC backed up, I would recommend doing a fresh install of XP Pro. Meaning formatting your hard drive and installing XP Pro from scratch. Upgrading from one OS over the top of another never seems to work out well in the long run. Either doesn't go smoothly during the install or you'll have OS and other software issues down the road.

Chris

 

[BadBigBen]

Go into the BIOS Setup, and there turn off VIRUS CHECKING and SMART Monitoring of the HDDs...

Ben

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

 

[dkel22]

I am an admin on the computer and trying to run the install from within Windows. When booting from CD it only gives the option for a fresh install (which I will like to do eventually in the future, but not practical for right now) and know that upgrades always tend to be a little funky. I have not tried turning off the virus checking in BIOS, but will try that later and see if that works.

 

[linney]

Does XP Home have the same Service Pack version as the XP Pro CD?

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade (Reinstallation) of Windows XP (Q315341)

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp

How to perform a repair installation of Windows XP if Internet Explorer 7 is installed

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/917964/

 

[dkel22]

they are both SP2.
Unable to find any settings for SMART or Virus Checking in my BIOS.

 

[c1utch]

I've never tried this, but can you start the upgrade while Windows is in Safe Mode? My guess is no, but it's worth a try. At that point everything will be shut down so nothing will interfere with the installation...but again...it probably won't let you start the installation of Pro in the first place.

Chris

 

[dkel22]

c1utch you may be onto something...I never even thought to try it in safe mode! Sometimes it's the simplest things...but anyways the install started and is running now so I'll update if it completes successfully and if so seems like the best practice to install from Safe mode anyways

 

[dkel22]

worked perfectly with no issues...thanks for the idea c1utch