Associate
- Joined
- 29 Sep 2007
- Posts
- 21
- Location
- Sheerness, Kent, UK
Hi all,
First time poster here.
I recently upgraded my PC from the Stone Age setup that I've been running for a while now:-
Asus TUV4X
1.3Ghz Pentium III
512Mb RAM
Matrox Millenium G400
125Gb IBM Deskstar HD
230Gb Maxtor HD
LG DVD/CD-RW
Sony DVD-RW
RAID controller card
USB 2 controller card
Firewire controller card
2 network cards
to something approaching the 21st century:-
Abit IP35 Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.7GHz
2Gb PC 5300 DDR2 RAM
Asus EN8800GTS
2x Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb SATA HDs
LG DVD/CD-RW
Sony DVD-RW
but I've now hit a problem - I can't install Windows! The version I have is an upgrade version of XP Home. The previous OS for the PC, ME, is also an upgrade version. The only full version of Windows that I have is 98SE. Installing Windows from 98SE - or even ME - is not an option as neither seems to support a lot of my new hardware setup.
Now, to get round this, I've been told that I can do a clean install of XP from my upgrade version as long as I have another version of Windows on disc to hand for when Setup prompts me to insert it into my CD once Setup finds that I don't have a version of Windows installed on my HD. I have tried this but it almost always fails. I get to the point where I'm prompted to insert the XP Home disc again and it won't recognise the disc once it's in the drive.
On the 2 occasions that it has managed to get past this point I then hit another problem - my HDs. The version of XP I have is quite old and doesn't have SP2 with it. That means that I can only setup a partition on my HDs of approx 120-125Gb. I have tried to do this both via the Windows setup screen and in another PC but this part always fails. If I let Setup take care of this it promptly corrupts the drive when formatting it. If I try to take care via my 2nd PC it does better but still fails.
I've tried setting up a 125Gb partition and another one with the remaining space - this setup won't get past the "Verifying Pool DMI Data" part of booting.
I've tried setting up a 125Gb partition and leaving the rest unallocated and this seems to work until Setup reboots for the first time where I promptly get an "NTLDR is missing" error.
So what exactly, is my problem here? Someone on another forum has suggested that it may be due to my optical drives being IDE rather than SATA. This seems a long shot to me but I do stand to be corrected. Is this feasible?
I think, but could be wrong, that it's a combination of my trying to install a clean version of Windows from an upgrade disc AND that my version of XP - plain, vanilla Home without SP2 - doesn't support HD's as large as 500Gb. Does this sound feasible?
If the Windows/HD issue is the reason behind my problems then I see 3 potential paths to solving this:-
Buy an 80Gb SATA HD. This is the cheapest solution - approx £25 - and would mean that my version of Windows should support this HD but doesn't potentially get around the issue with swapping CDs.
Buy Windows XP with SP2 Home 64 bit version. This would - hopefully - get around the swapping DVD issue and Setup not recognising XP Home once it's re-inserted AND, being the 64bit version, means that I could add more RAM at a later date as I understand that the 32 bit version only supports ~3-3.5Gb RAM natively. I could get an OEM version for around £65.
Get Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit edition. Again, an OEM version is around £65. It has all the same benefits as getting a full version of XP but I don't like some of the "features" that I've read of for this OS. However, if this is the best technical solution, I would seriously consider it.
So, does anyone have any thoughts on my ramblings regarding my issues? Or does anyone have any other advice/help/suggestions that might get me out of my hole? If so then I'd be more than grateful to hear them!
Many thanks.
First time poster here.
I recently upgraded my PC from the Stone Age setup that I've been running for a while now:-
Asus TUV4X
1.3Ghz Pentium III
512Mb RAM
Matrox Millenium G400
125Gb IBM Deskstar HD
230Gb Maxtor HD
LG DVD/CD-RW
Sony DVD-RW
RAID controller card
USB 2 controller card
Firewire controller card
2 network cards
to something approaching the 21st century:-
Abit IP35 Pro
Intel Core 2 Duo 2.7GHz
2Gb PC 5300 DDR2 RAM
Asus EN8800GTS
2x Samsung Spinpoint 500Gb SATA HDs
LG DVD/CD-RW
Sony DVD-RW
but I've now hit a problem - I can't install Windows! The version I have is an upgrade version of XP Home. The previous OS for the PC, ME, is also an upgrade version. The only full version of Windows that I have is 98SE. Installing Windows from 98SE - or even ME - is not an option as neither seems to support a lot of my new hardware setup.
Now, to get round this, I've been told that I can do a clean install of XP from my upgrade version as long as I have another version of Windows on disc to hand for when Setup prompts me to insert it into my CD once Setup finds that I don't have a version of Windows installed on my HD. I have tried this but it almost always fails. I get to the point where I'm prompted to insert the XP Home disc again and it won't recognise the disc once it's in the drive.
On the 2 occasions that it has managed to get past this point I then hit another problem - my HDs. The version of XP I have is quite old and doesn't have SP2 with it. That means that I can only setup a partition on my HDs of approx 120-125Gb. I have tried to do this both via the Windows setup screen and in another PC but this part always fails. If I let Setup take care of this it promptly corrupts the drive when formatting it. If I try to take care via my 2nd PC it does better but still fails.
I've tried setting up a 125Gb partition and another one with the remaining space - this setup won't get past the "Verifying Pool DMI Data" part of booting.
I've tried setting up a 125Gb partition and leaving the rest unallocated and this seems to work until Setup reboots for the first time where I promptly get an "NTLDR is missing" error.
So what exactly, is my problem here? Someone on another forum has suggested that it may be due to my optical drives being IDE rather than SATA. This seems a long shot to me but I do stand to be corrected. Is this feasible?
I think, but could be wrong, that it's a combination of my trying to install a clean version of Windows from an upgrade disc AND that my version of XP - plain, vanilla Home without SP2 - doesn't support HD's as large as 500Gb. Does this sound feasible?
If the Windows/HD issue is the reason behind my problems then I see 3 potential paths to solving this:-
Buy an 80Gb SATA HD. This is the cheapest solution - approx £25 - and would mean that my version of Windows should support this HD but doesn't potentially get around the issue with swapping CDs.
Buy Windows XP with SP2 Home 64 bit version. This would - hopefully - get around the swapping DVD issue and Setup not recognising XP Home once it's re-inserted AND, being the 64bit version, means that I could add more RAM at a later date as I understand that the 32 bit version only supports ~3-3.5Gb RAM natively. I could get an OEM version for around £65.
Get Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit edition. Again, an OEM version is around £65. It has all the same benefits as getting a full version of XP but I don't like some of the "features" that I've read of for this OS. However, if this is the best technical solution, I would seriously consider it.
So, does anyone have any thoughts on my ramblings regarding my issues? Or does anyone have any other advice/help/suggestions that might get me out of my hole? If so then I'd be more than grateful to hear them!
Many thanks.
