RE: Win XP Home boots to the wrong copy - change systemroot?



Boot to xp cd,recovery,select (usually) 1 for C: Press enter for
password,type:
DiskPart In DiskPart,delete the partitions that are not needed,once
thru,press
ESC key,type:EXIT Reboot to xp cd,select install xp,repair this copy.
However,if it was my pc,i'd wipe all the partitions,create 1,& do a clean
install.
A repair takes as long as a clean install + wipes out all updates,if repair
works,
youve saved a "few" minutes,if it doesnt,youre back to reinstallation....

"Martin B. Brilliant" wrote:

I had XP Home installed on first hard drive, third partition (HD 0,
Part 2). I had a problem with it probably caused by wrong permissions
accidentally set up in the WINDOWS folder. A repair install failed
after deleting some files.

I installed another copy of XP Home on HD 0, Part 1 (second
partition). Both drives are primary partitions formated NTFS. The
current configuration is:

The "system drive" is the original Part 2, called C:. That's where
BOOT.INI is.

The "boot drive" is the new installation on Part 1, called R:. This is
where the active WINDOWS folder is.

BOOT.INI has only one Win XP entry, pointing to Part 2. Something in
Part 2 (C:), I don't know what, sets systemroot to be R:\WINDOWS.

I do not have dual booting.

Using the new installation, I fixed the permissions on the C: drive.
Now I want to do a repair installation on the C: drive. The Windows XP
CD does not offer a repair installation.

If I can do a successful repair I want to boot to Windows on the C:
drive and get rid of the new installation.

If the repair is not successful I want to set up Part 1 (where the new
installation now is) as the C: drive acting as both system drive and
boot drive.

Question 1: how can I arrange for the XP install CD to offer a repair
installation on C:? If I format the R: drive would that do the trick?

Question 2: if the repair is successful, will that automatically set
systemroot to C:\WINDOWS?

Question 3: if the repair is not successful, how can I make Part 1
(which is now R: in the new installation) become system drive, boot
drive, and C:? Are there boot files I can rename, delete, or hide that
would do the trick?

Note that might be helpful: I have an old installation of Windows NT
on the second HD (HD 1) that can access the Windows XP drives, and a
Windows XP boot floppy that can boot to Windows NT. So if Windows XP
becomes unbootable because of changes I made, I can get to Win NT to
undo the changes.

I have not yet tried to activate the new XP installation. I still have
30 days to use it before I have to try.


Marty
Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

.



Relevant Pages

  • Re: XP Repair
    ... Anna, thanks you very much for the reply, Here's an overview: ... Drives: A: 3.5 floppy ... If just the "Repair" installaion ... I need to do an XP "Repair" installation and wish to know how bad ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support)
  • Re: New XP Installation on new hard drive - will not read from CD
    ... >>Assuming your system is set to boot from the CD-ROM ... >>To Repair a Windows XP Installation using Recovery ... drive and both CD drives are ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: XP Home and XP Pro on two separate drives
    ... , while the CD and DVD drives are on the other ... slave and boot from my old XP configuration (with the old drive as ... :> In the case of SATA HDs, the default HD boot order is just ... :> During installation of WinXP, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.setup_deployment)
  • Re: moving from FC 5 to FC 8
    ... New computer now has 3 hard drives in the following configuration. ... sdb - new 500 GB drive with Windows Vista ... Used the BIOS to alter the boot sequence to: ... So I'm pretty sure that the Kubuntu installation left the MBR on sdb intact from the Windows installation and upgraded the GRUB installation on sda from the FC 5 installation. ...
    (Fedora)
  • Re: Boot problems with RAID
    ... did boot up OK. ... I wanted to avoid having to un-RAID the drives as the rebuild takes an age ... drives hooked up and reboot to the old XP install but what would have ... See if you can boot the installation ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)