XP64 back to XP trouble

M

Mike Armstrong

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2005
Messages
197
I have XP Pro x64 installed (full edition) and would like to revert back to XP Home using my old XP Home upgrade edition CD. However, during install it says it does not recognize a version of Windows installed on my machine and asks to put a Windows OS CD in, but when I put the xp x64 disc in and hit enter it says it cannot read the disc. Anybody know why? Thanks


Mike
 
Well first off, you can't use XP64 as a qualified media for an XP Home upgrade disc. Microsoft does not support 'upgrading' to an older version. You would need to install XP32 from a full install disc, or provide a different disc for the upgrade qualification, such as Windows 2000.

As XP64 is a 64-bit OS (durr) and the entire CD is 64-bit files, XP32 won't be able to understand any of it.
 
Moreover, you can't upgrade keeping settings from XP x64 to any OS at all, even Vista x64 - you have to do a clean install.
 
Well, I thought I found a way to 'sneak' it on. I have XP Home installed on a HD that I took out of my old PC. I installed that HD into my xp X64 machine. Now the XP Home upgrade disc recognizes XP on my older HD and has allowed me to install a new copy of XP onto my other XP x64 HD. Great. But, now when I attempt to boot up my machine to the new copy of XP Home it says something like 'boot file is missing, insert boot CD'. I suspect that since the XP Home CD was just an 'upgrade' version and not a 'full' version that it uses the boot file from the previous version of Windows that it looks for before installing. Since I installed it on a separate HD it wont boot on its own because no boot file was installed with it, correct?

If so, is there a way I can install a 'boot file' onto the HD with the upgrade version installed so it will run on its own? Thanks
 
Change the boot sequence in BIOS. Make sure the new disk is the first boot device, then try again.
 
Checked BIOS, the newer disc is listed as #1, master. I also set the boot priority to boot from the HD first. I still get the same message...'DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISC AND PRESS ENTER'. So, I have tried inserting XP Home upgrade disc, hit enter, but it says 'Boot from CD:' followed by the same message as before. ?

Also, the only way I have been able to get to the new install on the newer disc is to put in the XP CD at startup and let it go past the 'Push any key to boot from CD' and it will then boot up the new install. ?
 
I assume thers no way to install an upgrade version of x32 Windows on a HD without that particular HD having a version of Windows already installed on it (another x32 edition that is) even if you have another HD in that same computer with a full version of Windows installed on it?

Edit: What Ill try is to install my only full version disc, XP x64 Pro, onto a sepoarate partition on the same HD as the upgrade XP Home is on and use the XP x64 boot file to boot into XP Home.
 
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