Tutorials

Installing Memory modules

Installing Windows XP On A Multiple Hard Drive PC With A New Primary Drive

Reinstalling Windows XP

Update In-Place Reinstallation Of Windows XP

Repair In-Place Reinstallation Of Windows XP

Clean Reinstallation Of Windows XP

Set your CD-ROM as the primary Boot Device before installing Windows. For you to boot directly from Windows XP installation CD, you must first configure your CD-ROM as the primary boot device. On most of our machines, this configuration exists already. But check to make sure. And to do so, insert the installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and reboot your PC. If this message, “Press any key to boot from CD-ROM” appears on the screen, you need not change the configuration. If this message doesn’t appear, you have to dig inside the BIOS (basic input/output system) settings, which is also called Setup and do the configuration manually. The BIOS settings area appears when you turn on your computer. Note that mere restarting the PC may not open the BIOS. Turn the PC off and on repeatedly. You will see the notice or similar notice, “Press Delete to enter Settings or press F10 for Configuration”. Enter the BIOS menus by pressing the Delete key on the keyboard while the notice is still on the screen, although other methods like pressing a function key still happen. Whichever way, time it correctly (just don’t wait too long), and a list of configuration possibilities related to your system memory, hard drives, USB and PCI settings will appear.

Since this tutorial deals with only the boot order, we assume that every other aspect of the Setup list of configuration possibilities is rightly configured. Navigate around the menus with the keyboard to find the boot order. Use the BIOS interface to change the boot order so that your PC looks for the CD-ROM before it looks for the hard drives. Although not strictly necessary, also put the CD-ROM ahead of the floppy drive, in case you forget a floppy disk in the drive. After you have changed the configuration, save the settings. Insert the Windows installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and reboot your PC. Ultimately, you will now boot from the CD-ROM. After you have finished installing Windows, you can change the boot order back if you like, and instruct the PC to boot from the hard drive first, in order to boot faster.

Types of Installation:

Type 1: Installing Windows XP on a new PC or a new hard drive (a PC with only one hard drive).

The process of installing Windows Xp on a brand new PC and on a brand new in a one-drive computer is the same. Before doing any other thing, make sure you have the Windows XP CD Product Key handy. The Product key is a long mix of letters and numbers found on the back of the CD case, without which you won’t be able to install Windows.

Insert the installation CD in the CD-ROM drive and start or reboot the computer. The notification, “Press any key to boot from the CD-ROM” appears. Follow the instruction and press any key on the keyboard. Most certainly, Setup begins.

1. On the first blue screen, choose “To Set Up Windows XP Now”. Press “Enter” option and press the “Enter” key.

2. The next screen appears. Press the F8 key on the keyboard to accept the Windows XP Licensing Agreement.

3. On the third screen, Setup lists your computer’s hard drives and the partitions on each of them. Since we assume here you have a single-drive PC, only one hard drive appears. And since the drive is new, it has only one partition or no partition at all. Whatever, since we assume that there’s no data on the drive you want to save, proceed to step 4, if you have an existing partition. If there is no partition, proceed to step 5.

4. Delete the existing partition by highlighting it and pressing the D key on the keyboard. Windows promptly asks if you want to proceed with the deletion. Press the L key to confirm. Now the hard drive has no partition.

5. Highlight the un-partitioned space and press either “Enter” or the C key. Pressing the “Enter” key instructs Windows to use the whole hard drive for the installation, in which case the entire hard drive serves as an single partition. On the other hand, pressing the C key instructs Windows that you want to divide the hard drive into more than one partition. If your hard drive is over 60GB, seriously consider creating more than one partition. Doing this provides a partition to use in case your Windows XP installation crashes in future. It will also as a backup partition, or for installation of a second instance of windows XP or an entirely different operating system like Linux in a dual-boot system. If you press the “Enter” key, move to step 7. If you press the C key, move to step 6.

6. By default, Windows XP configures itself to use the whole hard drive for  a single partition, exactly as if you had pressed the “Enter” key in step 5 instead of the C key. You may want to divide the hard drive into two or more partitions. However, at this stage, define only one partition and leave enough unformatted space to use afterwards. Write down the number presently displayed in the partition size area (for remembrance) and chop that number into half, one-third or two-third (as you desire) . On a 60GB hard drive, for example, you can create a 30GB partition for Windows XP and leave the other 30GB as an unformatted space. Make the partition now by entering the desired size for the first partition in the space provided. The first partition is called the primary partition (C:). Others are called extended partitions (D:, and so on). We recommend you not to use more than a single full-sized partition.

Tip: The partitioning screen of Windows XP uses megabytes instead of gigabytes  as its unit of measurement. While specifying the size of the partitions, create a 30GB drive by typing the number 30000 since 1GB is roughly 1000MB. Mathematically, 1GB is actually equal to 1024MB. But to avoid confusion, working in 1000s is okay at this level. For a 40GB hard drive, type 40000. Read more

Also read Type 2: Installing Windows XP on a multiple hard drive PC with a new primary drive.