New Hard Drive

[Heartofgold]

HI there

My hard drive died, so I brought a brand new 80 gig hard drive. At first I loaded up Windows 98SE. After Awhile I decided to put my copy of Windows XP Pro on it. So I reformated and put it on with no problems.

A couple days ago I decided to put windows 98SE back on again. I tried loading it but it wouldn't load.

Bu the way, When I had windows 98SE on it I parition the hard drive into three paritions.

I decided to reformat C: to reload Windows XP Pro.

It will reformat no problem and then start to load the files needed to install Windows XP Pro, but after copying files and restarting it comes back and says it can't install in C: because there is already a copy of windows there.

So I go ahead and allow it to delete that copy and then it begins to load again and the whole process goes again, Each time telling me that another OS is already loaded.

I really need help with this. Never had this problem before.

Edited May 12, 2006 by Heartofgold

[LLXX]

Format C: from a DOS boot floppy or similar before installing the XP... it seems you have an OEM version of the XP.

[Tasslehoff]

I think 98se has to be installed first on the first partition of the hard drive. Installing it after XP doesn't work I don't think. So I'd fdisk the hard drive to delete all the partitions then create three partitions again. A small 5-10GB for win98SE, ~25GB on the second partition for XP and the rest for the third partition. Then install 98se first and then xp pro on the second partition.

Edited May 12, 2006 by Tasslehoff

[Heartofgold]

All I want to do now is have Windows XP Pro on the hard drive. I've reformatted the hard drive and then attempted to load XP Pro. It loads up the startup files and then when it restarts the computer to continue the set up then it says that I have to delete the previous version on the drive. But there isn't one on it.

So it will again reformat the drive and then when it loads up it does the same thing again.

I can't seem to get beyond loading the set up files.

[nitroshift]

don't use quick format. i'd do a format c: /u from dos prompt.

[Heartofgold]

Boy am I stupid. The copy I have is a Windows XP Pro upgrade. I loaded up windows 98SE first and then put in the Windows XP Pro disk and it installed no problem. Sorry for wasting your time.

[nitroshift]

Boy am I stupid. The copy I have is a Windows XP Pro upgrade. I loaded up windows 98SE first and then put in the Windows XP Pro disk and it installed no problem. Sorry for wasting your time.

rofl