Malcolm, Take this with doses of salt, but this is what happened when I had a sort-of similar situation.
It's been a few years since this happened to me. What happened then was I had tried to install (add) IIS to my XP/PRO machine, but because the machine name started with the letters "SYS" (known XP bug, as I found out later), the process failed and XP was completely dead. After much hassle, to get running again, I finally decided to reinstall XP from the Gateway supplied XP disk. Before starting, I switched drives C and D, intending to install XP on the "new" C and leave the old installation on D - or so I thought. When I started to do the install from the XP disk provided with the machine by Gateway, I noticed it didn't have a key code on it, nor was it in the doc I rec'd from Gateway (it wasn't until later, in conversation with a different Gateway rep that I learned the XP key code is on a label attached to the rear of the machine). But I didn't have this when prompted by XP during the installation. What happened then was weird. When I thought I didn't have the XP activation key, I attempted to cancel the install, but discovered that it proceeded anyway. Good, I thought, but didn't know why. I think what actually happened was that XP must have seen the old installation on D, so it decided to proceed with the (re)installation to C. It did install, and work, but I discovered that the result was a partially installed XP on C and the rest on D. I left it that way and to this day it hasn't actually been a problem, but an organizational mess. It's been a while, but I don't believe it prompted me during the install to format/wipe the target drive. When the installation did finish, it worked okay and my programs and files were intact, but I can't say whether the install that took place was actually the full install as I intended, or a partial install because it discovered the old XP on D. One moral to this story: don't try to move old C to D (without wiping it first, anyway) and then install XP to the new C, because you may hit the same problem I hit. I don't think this antidote is definitive enough to go on, but an account that suggests you may be able to do what you want to do - and a gotcha. Bill > Hi Michael, > > Thanks for the feedback. The workstation in question is a > Dell WS-380 with a 160G SATA drive. > > My XP Pro setup CD can't recognize the drive so I assume I > either have to order a replacement version of XP from Dell or > find the SATA drivers and try to get these drivers on my XP > Pro's ISO image. > > Also: When I reinstall and have to choose a user name, if I > choose the same user name that was previously set on the > system, will the Windows XP setup erase all the files in the > process of (re)building a new account? > > Any thoughts? > > Thanks! > _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[EMAIL PROTECTED] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.
