Member Avatar for rational611

Hi,

I have 2 PCs each running Windows XP SP2 on Celeron 2.0 GHz with 512 MB Ram. The Win XP installation on the first hardisk has become currupt and the system freezes midway during the booting process. I wanted to perform an upgrade installation to fix the problem. I took out the first PC's hardisk and attached it to the second system. Since the first HDD is not booting, I had to boot the system from the second PC's hardisk. After that I put the Windows XP installation CD into the CDROM and ran setup. I choose to perform an upgrade installation which I wanted to perform on the currupted HDD. However the installation once launched, did not allow me select the HDD on which I wanted to perform an upgrade install. It actually ran the setup on the healthy HDD from which I had booted and performed the upgrade installation on the healthy HDD.

I want to know if there is a way to prevent this and make the setup perform the upgrade installation on the second hardisk (not the one which is used to boot the system).

Thanks in advance.

rational611

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Short answer: running Setup from inside the healthy Windows will only offer an Upgrade for the running installation, so your healthy HDD got upgraded. To perform an in-place "Upgrade/Repair" on the corrupted disk you must boot the machine from the Windows XP CD with the corrupted drive as the primary (or the only) disk, or otherwise make that disk the active boot target before launching Setup.

Practical steps to do the repair (safe order):

  1. Back up user data first (attach the disk to another PC or boot a Live CD/BartPE and copy C:\Documents and Settings etc.).
  2. Reinstall the corrupted HDD into its original PC (or swap so it is the first drive in BIOS). Disconnect other internal drives if possible to avoid touching the wrong disk.
  3. Boot from the Windows XP CD (make CD-ROM first in BIOS). At the initial "Welcome to Setup" screen press ENTER (do not press R). Setup will search for existing Windows installations and list them; select the correct installation and press R to start the repair (in-place upgrade). Follow the onscreen steps; you will usually need to reinstall service packs and updates afterward.

Clarification about "Repair" vs Recovery Console: pressing R at the very first setup prompt launches the Recovery Console (a command-line tool useful for mbr/boot fixes), but that is NOT the GUI repair/in-place upgrade. Recovery Console commands you might use are:

fixmbr
fixboot c:
chkdsk /r c:
exit

If the in-place repair fails or system files are badly damaged, a clean install may be necessary. was correct to point to using the CD boot, but note the Enter then R sequence to get the repair install; , do a full backup first and disconnect the healthy drive when performing the repair to avoid repeating the accidental upgrade.

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Member Avatar for Nick Evan

Just leave the corrupted drive in the PC where it belongs and put in the winXP CD. Change the bootorder so that CD-ROM is primary bootdevice.
Wait for WINXP setup.
Choose Repair.

Edited by Nick Evan because: n/a
Member Avatar for rational611

Just leave the corrupted drive in the PC where it belongs and put in the winXP CD. Change the bootorder so that CD-ROM is primary bootdevice.
Wait for WINXP setup.
Choose Repair.

regards Niek

I am not so sure about this, but I think when you choose the "Repair" option after booting from the WinXP setup CDROM, the recovery console is loaded which does not perform a upgrade installation. But as I said before I am not sure about this. Could you please double check and confirm that the Recovery Console can be used to perform a upgrade installation?

rational611

Edited by Nick Evan because: n/a
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