XP Re-Installation

[the Crazed]

Well... for those of you who were helping me I appreciate it!

I ended up buying a new hard drive (200GB!) and am in the act of installing windows on it right now.  I've learned a lot about partitioning and it definitely sounds useful, I put 4 on it.  Looking forward to having a quick computer again!

Question:  When I first put the HD in, there was already a C: partition of about 12 gigs, a primary partition with data on it from the manufacturer.  I was going to install XP there but it would overwrite the data and I was worried I might need it.  Do I?  I ended up installing XP on an extended partition (D:).  Does Windows NEED to be on a primary partition?  If so, is there any way I can convert it to primary without losing all the data on it?  Windows is going on it right now, so I'd have to reinstall everything.  Anyway, hope that makes sense.

Thanks for the help

[the Crazed]

Hmmmm.... I installed windows fine, then went to windows update, downloaded the updated updater which installed onto my comp.  I was instructed to restart.  I did so and it froze before shutting down.  I turned the power off manually and turned it back on and nothing.  My monitor doesn't come on.  I can hear the drives start up and spin but that's it.

<sigh>  Downloading a boot disc now...

[tr3y]

Does the monitor say in stand-bye mode?  If it does then its not getting a signal and is normally hardware related not software.  Most common problem is vid card just needs re-seeded, just pull it out and put it back in and try it.  If its not hte vid card try the same thing with the ram.  If all else fails try booting the pc without a vidcard and see if you get a beep code, make sure your PC speaker is hooked up so you could hear them.  If still nothing or any beeps without a vid card try removing the ram and vid card and power up, should get a beep code.   If you find the piece of hardware that will let the machine beep with it removed, that is most likely the piece of hardware causing your problem.

[the Crazed]

hmmmm... thanks trey...  I'll try it out!

[the Crazed]

Trey,

Should the beep code be continuous?  Or does it do a few weird beeps and stop?  The monitor is staying in standby, and did so after I reseeded my vid card.  I took it out completely and there was a short beep pattern that ended quickly.  I will mess with the ram and see if I can't get it working.

This problem occurred immediately after installing windows and doing a restart.  Windows froze while shutting down and then I couldn't get anything to show on-screen (monitor stayed in stand-by) when trying to get it to start up. 

[the Crazed]

Trey you madman!

Okay... figured out that beeping pattern were long continuous beeps.  I reseeded my RAM and it all booted up okay!  Excellent!

Now I gotta install windows to a PRIMARY partition so it will boot up normally instead of going to CMOS. 

Thanks for the help trey!!

[the Crazed]

Is it possible to convert a partition from extended to primary without losing data?

[the Crazed]

Hehe, sorry for the increasing frequency of these posts.  I'm posting as problems or lack of understanding arise.  Here's a new one

Along with the new HD I put in, I have a slave drive.  The jumpers are correctly set (none for the slave, all the way left for the master).  However the computer has marked the slave drive as the active partition and is trying to boot from it.  My master's primary partition is called "E:" and it should be called "C:"

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?!?!   

[tr3y]

Its been many years since I did hardware stuff so my memory is a little rusty.  What type of hard drives are you running reg IDE/dma, ata or scsi?  My first thought is the the jumper setting of none for the slave, this is normally cable select and I found with alot of drive combos it doesnt work well, try setting it to slave.  Make sure you boot drive is on the end of the cable if your using them both on one channel.  Or if using a seperate cable for each put the master on the primary on your mobo and the slave on the secondardy.   If they are plugged in this way DISK 0 in your cmos should be your new HD, make sure its the first hard disk in the boot order, the only one actually.  Normally your boot order will go FLOPPY, CDROM,  DISK 0, ect.. your pc should not even being attempting to boot form that slave drive so it must be set wrong.

You can also change drive letter assigment in windows xp/2k from the disk management tool, in xp you can right click on my computer, goto manage and you will see it there.  Just right click on a drive and there is an option to change drive letter.

To make it really easy, I would start out with only the new master drive hooked up, just leave the slave unplugged.  Boot from your XP cd and let it format and partition your drive the way you want it.  I normally just make 1 partition for the OS and leave the rest as one big drive, but its up to you.  After you have xp installed and your pc is up and running, then plug in that second slave drive to IDE2 or second plug from the end of your IDE cable.  I would get anti virus and anti spyware setup first on the newly formatted drive with clean XP install before you hook that old one back up, just incase you still have a problem on it that will reinfect your system.  After you copy any must have files off it, format that slave in windows.