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I HAVe XP INSTALLED ON PARTITION 1 (NOT MUCH SPACE LEFT)

I HAD COPY OF SERVER 2003 INSTALLED ONTO PARTITION 2 (WHICH I CREATED WHEN I INSTALLED IT ) - NOW 180 DAYS ARE UP>

CAN I START PARTITION 1 OPERATING SYSTEM WITH XP - INSERT ANOTHER EVALUATION COPY OF SERVER 2003 INTO CD-ROM DRIVE AND WILL I GET OPTION TO INSTALL THIS BACK ONTO PARTITION 2?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by kc0arf

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— and are pointing you in the right direction. A few extra, practical points that people tend to miss when restoring or re-installing a second Windows partition.

First, back up anything on the server partition you care about before you touch it. Imaging that partition (or at least copying configuration and data off) avoids surprises if the install thinks a different partition is the "system" partition and overwrites boot files.

A key concept: Windows makes a distinction between the "system" partition (where NTLDR/boot files live) and the "boot" partition (where Windows\ lives). Reinstalling another Windows on a different partition can change which partition is flagged active and overwrite the NTLDR/boot.ini on the system partition. If XP fails to appear after the reinstall you can usually repair the boot loader without reinstalling XP.

If the boot entry is lost, use the Recovery Console (from an XP/Server CD) and run these commands:

fixmbr
fixboot c:
bootcfg /rebuild

If NTLDR or ntdetect.com are missing, copy them from the CD to the system drive. After rebuilding the boot entries you may need to edit boot.ini to set the correct partition numbers.

Finally, remember licensing/activation: evaluation installs are time-limited and reinstalling does not guarantee a renewed trial for long-term use. For production, use a properly licensed key. Also consider slipstreaming service packs or ensuring drivers are ready before installing so the server comes up cleanly.

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Member Avatar for kraine

I HAVe XP INSTALLED ON PARTITION 1 (NOT MUCH SPACE LEFT)

I HAD COPY OF SERVER 2003 INSTALLED ONTO PARTITION 2 (WHICH I CREATED WHEN I INSTALLED IT ) - NOW 180 DAYS ARE UP>

CAN I START PARTITION 1 OPERATING SYSTEM WITH XP - INSERT ANOTHER EVALUATION COPY OF SERVER 2003 INTO CD-ROM DRIVE AND WILL I GET OPTION TO INSTALL THIS BACK ONTO PARTITION 2?

You will want to boot from the Windows 2003 disk. From there you can format the partition and install the OS.

Member Avatar for kc0arf

Hello,

Yep. When you boot the 2003 disk, you will get a listing of the partitions somewhere in the install process. Make sure you select the right partition. For cleanliness, you might want to delete the small partition first, and then install 2003 again in a new cleanly formatted partition.

Christian

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