Did I just f**k up my desktop for good?

[ZYouL8R]

I installed an additional HD in my Dell tonight. On the instructions, it said the final step was to load Windows XP on the new HD. Well I load it and now it's like I'm starting the computer for the first time. I lost all my settings, all my programs, everything. MS Office is gone along with everything other program I ever loaded.

Basically, I have a different user profile since my new profile is called "owner" and all my shit is in Documents and Settlings>Danny. So can I load my old profile somehow and get all my shit back or did I just fuck up everything for good?

Was I supposed to run the XP CD only if the new HD was going to be replacing my old one? If this is the case, they really should have stated that in the instructions.

[butt86]

when you installed the hd did you set the jumpers on the right setting? sounds like your new hd has become the "master" and is now the drive it boots from. through "my computer" can you still access the other drive and is everything still on it in there?

[ZYouL8R]

when you installed the hd did you set the jumpers on the right setting? sounds like your new hd has become the "master" and is now the drive it boots from. through "my computer" can you still access the other drive and is everything still on it in there?

I removed the jumper making it the slave HD per the instructions. I don't know much about installing HD's but from what I read, I might have an Ultra ATA cable (not sure if this is the right term) but either way I plugged the black plug into my original HD and the grey one into the new HD.

I found MS Office and my other programs in the "Danny" folder under Documents and Settings, but when I try to load them it says I'm not an authorized user. Other programs just say they're missing files and to reload them.

[ZYouL8R]

Ok I figured it out. When I restart my computer I get a prompt asking me if I want to boot with Windows XP or Windows XP. If I choose the 1st one, it uses the new version that I just loaded with all defualt settings. If I choose the 2nd one, it uses the original version with my settings.

So now that I've taken the gun away from my head, should I uninstall the newest version to do away with the prompt? Should I have even installed XP to the new HD in the 1st place or is that just for when the new HD is the primary?

[butt86]

im no pro. but i have never installed an OS on my storage only drive.

[Roliath]

You shouldn't have installed the OS on the secondary drive, simply connect it give it power and format it.
That's it.

If I were you I would take the easy way out, and load you "original" XP, and format the second one. You may have to edit your boot.ini file so that you don't see two OS selections at boot.

Also you want your "MAIN" drive to be the last one on the ide cable, if your jumper is set to CS then the Master spot is the last connection on the ide cable, slave being the middle.

Now I should go to sleep.

[Osiris]

You shouldn't have installed the OS on the secondary drive, simply connect it give it power and format it.
That's it.

If I were you I would take the easy way out, and load you "original" XP, and format the second one. You may have to edit your boot.ini file so that you don't see two OS selections at boot.

Also you want your "MAIN" drive to be the last one on the ide cable, if your jumper is set to CS then the Master spot is the last connection on the ide cable, slave being the middle.

Now I should go to sleep.

You're so bitter.

[ZYouL8R]

You shouldn't have installed the OS on the secondary drive, simply connect it give it power and format it.
That's it.

If I were you I would take the easy way out, and load you "original" XP, and format the second one. You may have to edit your boot.ini file so that you don't see two OS selections at boot.

Also you want your "MAIN" drive to be the last one on the ide cable, if your jumper is set to CS then the Master spot is the last connection on the ide cable, slave being the middle.

Now I should go to sleep.

So just reformat the 2nd drive again and it will automatically get rid of the XP version on it?

I'm pretty sure the main drive is the last one on the IDE cable. I had to move the drives so the wire would reach both, allowing the end of the cable to plug into the master HD.

[Walsted]

Before formatting or deleting anything, verify where everything is at. I could be wrong, but you may have just ended up installing another copy of XP on the same drive as the first one, and formatting the second drive won't accomplish anything. If you post the text of your boot.ini file, someone may be able to decipher it and tell you which copy is where so you can delete the right directory. Otherwise, you may really hate yourself later. (I'd do it, but I'm working nights and about to grab quite a few hours of shut-eye if I am lucky.)

Hope this helps.

[ZYouL8R]

I think the new XP is on the new HD. I think this because after I formatted the HD (before doing the XP install) there was nothing on the HD. After doing the XP install, the new HD has 4 folders (DELL, WINDOWS, USERS, and one other). It seems like this would indicate that I put windows on this drive. Also, it labeled the new HD as "D:" instead of "F:" that I named it.

[ZYouL8R]

So is there any way to tell where this new version of XP is installed? Where is that BOOT file and what am I looking for?

[red04gt]

Boot from the new version of xp go to my computer and see if the new drives has windows on it.

[ZYouL8R]

Boot from the new version of xp go to my computer and see if the new drives has windows on it.

When I boot under the new XP, the new HD has a Windows folder along with a few others. When I boot under the old XP, the new HD has nothing.

[Walsted]

If your drives are not the same size, you could go to Start -> My Computer. Click on View, select Details. That will show you the size of each drive. Then you can determine which drive is on which letter, and delete everything off of the new drive. From what I read above, you can probably boot into the old system and delete the newer system from the D: drive. In your boot.ini file on the master disk, the lines containing multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS= refer to the XP set up on the master disk; the lines with different numbers would refer to a different disk.

As far as what you can see when booting into different systems, XP hides system files unless you select that it doesn't. (I forget how to do this, I'm on a Linux box at the moment.)

Hope this helps.

[Walsted]

The boot.ini file will be in the C:\ directory

[ZYouL8R]

If your drives are not the same size, you could go to Start -> My Computer. Click on View, select Details. That will show you the size of each drive. Then you can determine which drive is on which letter, and delete everything off of the new drive. From what I read above, you can probably boot into the old system and delete the newer system from the D: drive. In your boot.ini file on the master disk, the lines containing multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS= refer to the XP set up on the master disk; the lines with different numbers would refer to a different disk.

As far as what you can see when booting into different systems, XP hides system files unless you select that it doesn't. (I forget how to do this, I'm on a Linux box at the moment.)

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the response. I went ahead and reformatted the new HD (F: ) but I'm still getting the prompt for the 2 versions of XP after a restart. It looks like I put the newer version of XP on the C: along with the other one. So how do I go about deleting one version of XP w/o hurting the other?

[Walsted]

Use notepad to open the C:\boot.ini file, and delete the lines where the numbers in paretheses aren't the same as multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=. I forget whether it will be disk or rdisk that is not a zero.

[ZYouL8R]

Use notepad to open the C:\boot.ini file, and delete the lines where the numbers in paretheses aren't the same as multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=. I forget whether it will be disk or rdisk that is not a zero.

This is what I have:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

[Walsted]

That boot.ini only references one operating system, on the second partition of the drive. If you boot to the other operating system, what is in the C:\boot.ini file?

[ZYouL8R]

That boot.ini only references one operating system, on the second partition of the drive. If you boot to the other operating system, what is in the C:\boot.ini file?

Let me find out. Thanks alot for the help man. I owe you a couple beers.

[ZYouL8R]

Ok it won't let me load the newer version of XP because it says the files are missing or corrupt, which I guess is good since I reformatted the new HD and I guess that wiped out the new version of XP. The question now is, why am I still getting prompted to choose a version?

[Walsted]

That I do not know. When you go to Start -> My Computer, which drives show? When you go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Disk Drives, which drives show?

I'll boot into XP and check out a few things, and get back here in a little while.

[ZYouL8R]

That I do not know. When you go to Start -> My Computer, which drives show? When you go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Hardware -> Device Manager -> Disk Drives, which drives show?

I'll boot into XP and check out a few things, and get back here in a little while.

It's showing a Maxtor (which I guess comes from the factory with Dells) and ST380215A (which I guess is my new Seagate 80gig, even though it doesn't really say anywhere in the properties). The new drive works fine, the only problem now is the prompt at startup. Thanks again for the help.

[Walsted]

Okay, go to Start -> My Computer, select View -> Details. What drives are shown, and how much space is on each? When you right click on each drive and select Properties -> Hardware, are both hard drives (by hardware type, not drive letter,) shown? I'm thinking there is something going on that I don't have figured out, namely, why is the system booting the second partition on the main drive?

[ZYouL8R]

Okay, go to Start -> My Computer, select View -> Details. What drives are shown, and how much space is on each? When you right click on each drive and select Properties -> Hardware, are both hard drives (by hardware type, not drive letter,) shown? I'm thinking there is something going on that I don't have figured out, namely, why is the system booting the second partition on the main drive?

Yes, both hard disks are shown along with 2 CDROMs and a floppy. I don't know if it makes a difference, but after I formatted this new HD, it said it only had ~75GB of total disk space even though it is an 80gig HD. I don't know much about partitions, but it seems like this could be why.

[Walsted]

One last question - If you go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Information, click on Components -> Storage -> Disks, there will be lines that say things like Partition Disk #0, Partition #0. Are there more than one of these lines per hard disk? If not, I don't think I can be of any further help, then. If you had another way of booting if you trashed your system, I would suggest Start -> Run, and type in fdisk /mbr. But, I'm not real sure that would work right in XP, and it may mess up the system.

The disk size difference is because windows reports a meg as 1024kb, and drive manufacturers report it as 1000kb.

Wish I could be of more help.

[ZYouL8R]

One last question - If you go to Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Information, click on Components -> Storage -> Disks, there will be lines that say things like Partition Disk #0, Partition #0. Are there more than one of these lines per hard disk? If not, I don't think I can be of any further help, then. If you had another way of booting if you trashed your system, I would suggest Start -> Run, and type in fdisk /mbr. But, I'm not real sure that would work right in XP, and it may mess up the system.

The disk size difference is because windows reports a meg as 1024kb, and drive manufacturers report it as 1000kb.

Wish I could be of more help.

There are 2 partitions in the original HD but only 1 in the new HD.

[Walsted]

Aha! Possibly your system came with a system restore partition that will restore your original settings, or settings at some earlier predetermined point. If so, you may want to try that software so it can reset the settings to a point the day before you installed the new version of XP.

Also, if you are brave, go to My Computer, and at the top go to Tools -> Folder Options -> View, and select the Show Hidden Files and Folders option. Also, uncheck the Hide protected operating system files option. This will let you see a lot more of what is on your drives, and may help explain a lot. While you are there, you should probably uncheck the Hide extensions block, as hidden extensions are one tool that folks use to sneak bad stuff on to computers.

When that is done, select OK, then pres Ctrl-R. Do you see anything different?

[Roliath]

You're so bitter.
Lets see, it was nearly 2am when I wrote that post.
Had to be at work at 7am, wake up around 5am.
How was I bitter?

[ZYouL8R]

Aha! Possibly your system came with a system restore partition that will restore your original settings, or settings at some earlier predetermined point. If so, you may want to try that software so it can reset the settings to a point the day before you installed the new version of XP.

Also, if you are brave, go to My Computer, and at the top go to Tools -> Folder Options -> View, and select the Show Hidden Files and Folders option. Also, uncheck the Hide protected operating system files option. This will let you see a lot more of what is on your drives, and may help explain a lot. While you are there, you should probably uncheck the Hide extensions block, as hidden extensions are one tool that folks use to sneak bad stuff on to computers.

When that is done, select OK, then pres Ctrl-R. Do you see anything different?

Before I try system restore, check this out. The boot.ini file I listed before was labeled as a backup. Now that I unhid the hidden files, I found the actual boot.ini file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Does this paint a better picture?

[nitrofreak]

You just need to remove the following line from the file, save it and reboot...


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

[Walsted]

You have to change your default line as well to match the active partition, that is
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S=

[ZYouL8R]

Ya'll are awesome. Thanks for the help! Crisis averted.