Any Hardware Gurus Out There: I'm trying to install OS on AMD64

[wiseant]

Hi All,

AMD64 - Athlon X2 Dual Core 4200+ 2.19 GHz 1 GB DDR2

I bought this computer a few months ago that came with VISTA Home Premium - it's actually running OK and works great for Video Capturing, Encoding, etc.

I want to install XP Pro on a separate IDE Hard Disk (an old 25 GB 5400 rpm) - the existing Vista drive is a SATA

So, I unplugged the SATA drive so I don't have to deal with the Vista install - I also unplugged the "Multi Card Reader" on advice from a local Windows certified technician)

I hooked up the IDE Hard Disk along with a DVDRW and a floppy disk drive
I was able to install Windows98SE but when I tried to install Windows 2000 or XP the installations failed

1. I tried to install W2KP and XP from within Windows98 - both installs failed, so I repartitioned and reformatted the hard disk (making sure the partition was active and less than the supposed 8 GB limit) and booted from my win98 floppy, enabled CD access and tried to install from the dos prompt (E:\...\i386\winnt):
a) W2KP failed and the error message was that the temporary files created by theWindows 2000 install could not be found on the hard disk!
b) XP failed - it copied the initial files but when it started to copy the other files it just hung and when I rebooted and restarted the install the error message was that the EULA could not be found
c) so, I repartitioned the drive, formatted it a: format c:/u/s and tried again - still the same problems - so I used xcopy /e (to copy all the subdirectories) and copied the contents to my hard disk - first I did this with W2KP and tried installing from the C:\ prompt (I used himem.sys, config.sys (DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS), and initialized smartdrv.exe - I got the same error - can't find the temporary files created . . .
d) so I did exactly the same thing with XP as in c) above and got the same XP error - can't find EULA

One bizarre thing I noted is that when the first W2KP install failed and I decided to try the install from the dos prompt - W2KP noted that the temporary files (that it said it couldn't find) had to be deleted first - this process (deleting about 400 MB of files) took over two hours!

Can anyone tell me what's happening here?

I have tried almost every CMOS setting: enable/disable USB Controllers, enable/disable PCI Busmaster, enable/disable ONChip SATA Channel, ONChipSATA type = Native IDE (btw what is AHCI?)

I also disabled the Network boot option . . .

My next step is to try and install LinuxMint - but that will be a different ball of wax

Any Hardware Gurus out there - any assistance would be greatly appreciated

TIA

[redwudz]

I'm not too clear on your methods. You should only need a XP OS disc to do that install. A floppy drive isn't needed for anything. What that sounds like is a damaged OS disc that isn't reading properly. The OS disc can partition and format the drive by itself. This is all assuming it's a full disc and not a upgrade disc.

And I am also assuming that PATA HDD is set as Master by the jumpers?

[wiseant]

Hi redwudz - thanks for the reply

I should have mentioned that I also tried a slipstream CD with XP SP2 that is bootable - I still had the same problems

I also think that it is very unlikely that both the W2KP and XP CDs are damaged . .

Yes I set the hard disk as Master by the jumper

[JohnnyMalaria]

I want to install XP Pro on a separate IDE Hard Disk (an old 25 GB 5400 rpm) - the existing Vista drive is a SATA

So, I unplugged the SATA drive so I don't have to deal with the Vista install - I also unplugged the "Multi Card Reader" on advice from a local Windows certified technician)

I don't understand why you would want to remove the SATA drive with Vista on it. Why not just dual boot? It would be much less painful to just add your IDE drive and then install XP onto it. The computer would still boot to the SATA drive but you would be able to launch XP by default. Note, after installing XP you would need to run bcdedit to rebuild the boot record so that both Vista and XP can be launched.

[wiseant]

Hi JohnnyMalaria - Thanks for the info

Originally I had planned this to be a test install before I commit to a new Hard Disk to install XP

I had tried to install XP from inside Vista but I was unable to do so - "... your existing OS is newer than the OS you are trying to install . . ."

Am I missing something here? Do I keep all my Vista stuff intact and simply boot from my XP install CD? If the install is successful then do I rebooot from CD and use bcdedit at that time?

TIA

[aedipuss]

start over. if you just want the little hd, then in the computer bios you need to change the boot drive to the new ide hd. then use a floppy to delete all partitions on the ide hd. now insert the winxp cd and let it format the c: drive and install.

[JohnnyMalaria]

Hi JohnnyMalaria - Thanks for the info

Originally I had planned this to be a test install before I commit to a new Hard Disk to install XP

I had tried to install XP from inside Vista but I was unable to do so - "... your existing OS is newer than the OS you are trying to install . . ."

Am I missing something here? Do I keep all my Vista stuff intact and simply boot from my XP install CD? If the install is successful then do I rebooot from CD and use bcdedit at that time?

TIA

To install with Vista, you have to boot from the XP installation CD. Running setup from within Vista won't work. Once installed, follow these instructions from step IV (you will already have completed the first three steps):

http://www.it-sideways.com/2007/06/installing-xp-after-vista.html

[wiseant]

Thanks folks - I going to try both of these options!

My Edit: I have read though the procedures from

http://www.it-sideways.com/2007/06/installing-xp-after-vista.html and

http://www.jsifaq.com/SF/Tips/Tip.aspx?id=10807

unfortunately I do not have a Vista install CD/DVD - the OS was "factory-installed" - all I have is a "Restore" on partion D of my Vista SATA Drive - I did back this up to a DVD - can I use this? re:

"2. Type CD-ROM:\boot\bootsect.exe -NT60 All and press Enter, where CD-ROM: is the drive letter that contains the Windows Vista media."

"IV. Then (while in XP), as stated in the instruction from here.
Put in the Vista installation CD/DVD and do the steps of 1,2 & 3.

where ...
you need to run the "bootsect.exe -NT60 All" command from command-line(cmd.exe) to set the bootloader back to the Vista version. Bootsect.exe is only available from Vista installation CD."

Hopefully this makes sense . . .

TIA

[JohnnyMalaria]

PM me and I'll send it to you.

[wiseant]

OK - before I hooked up the Vista SATA I tried one last install

from the win98 floppy boot, this time I used fdisk to repartition the whole drive, then formatted the IDE hard disk, but this time I did not copy the system files to the hard disk C:
then I accessed the W2KP CD and installed from the C: prompt
W2KP install OK, then with XCOPY /e I copied the XP files from the XP CD to the hard disk, then in W2KP I installed XP with the DOS prompt using C:\WINXP\I386\win32nt.exe [or is that winnt32.exe]?

Now I'll try hooking up the Vista SATA drive and see what happens . . .

I hope to get a dual boot system using the IDE and the SATA disks