Hi all

Please let me know if this is the proper forum for this question. I just purchased a Gateway Notebook

with WinXP Media Center installed. I would like to be able to install another copy of this operating system onto another partition. The problem is this: My laptop comes with a complete windows install CD but it will only boot automatically to Drive C and act as a repair disc. I phoned Gatway and they said that it was possible but they wouldnt tell he how it could be done. When the disc is installed everything is done automatically so I cant make any choices at bootup.

Anyone here know how to do this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks..Ron L (rluka)...

Drive repartitioning the drives into two equal parts with some disk partitioning utility, Partition Magic, diskpart.exe etc. Make the first partition active and install Media Center on it.

When its done, try the install process again and select the second partition to install the other copy to.

Should work. Good luck.

Does your DVD or HD have the I386 and CMPNENTS folders? if so you can build your own install DVD or CD set. See http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=63258 for information about preserving activation when reinstalling

What I have done and seems to work is this: I created an equal sized partition with Partition Magic.

I made an Drive Image of my "C" partition and loaded it it into my new "E" partition.

I then went into "System Properties/Advanced/System startup, etc" and placed a check mark next to "Time to display list of operating systems" Then I opened "Edit" and added another line so that it would show 2 operating systems at bootup. I pointed the new line to partition 3 in my case. (Drive "E")

I rebooted, The boot menu came up and I booted up WinXP on partition "E" ang it worked.

Now here is the small problem that I had and Im not sure if this corrected it: When I opened up the "Registry Editor" (regedit) all of the installed software was still pointing to the original "C" drive so I loaded another copy of Partition Magic onto the "E" drive and changed the name of "E" to "C". (I had to change the other drives as well) Now I have 2 "C" drives. Does anyone here know if that was the correct thing to do OR: Could I have just left it as "E" even though everything in the Reistry is pointing to "C"?

Ron L

Does your DVD or HD have the I386 and CMPNENTS folders? if so you can build your own install DVD or CD set. See http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=63258 for information about preserving activation when reinstalling

I do have a 1386 folder. I also have a "PRELOAD" folder.