Multiple O/Ss (a.k.a.) "Groveling in a quagmire of ineptitude!!"

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Guest

PC w 2000 OEM O/S - no disc. Crashed!

Bought XP Upgrade but it said "2000 not valid".

Loaded copy of XP Pro Full Version but it added rather than overwrote 2000.

Tried to revert back to 2000, but "restore floppies" not only didn't work
but XP disabled them because it was a prior version.

System is now showing 4 OSs, 3 of which won't work because of missing
"sys32....whatevers?". Maxed out on 2x40GB drives.

Backed up all to a 100GB External drive and managed to reformat "D", but "C"
won't - no matter how much I delete - which, I understand now was not a good
move, either!!

How do I delete the 3 inoperative systems? Can't remember how to get back
to MS-DOS screen with all the abbreviations; "format", "chdsk", etc.

Thx!

jim
 
Hi,
PC w 2000 OEM O/S - no disc. Crashed!
Click to expand...

One reason why you should never lose them.
Bought XP Upgrade but it said "2000 not valid".
Click to expand...

Probably because you got a "Home" upgrade. Only "Pro" can upgrade a Win2000
installation.
Loaded copy of XP Pro Full Version but it added rather than overwrote
2000.
Click to expand...

Either you failed to choose the upgrade option, or it was an OEM full
version which does not do upgrades.
Tried to revert back to 2000, but "restore floppies" not only didn't work
but XP disabled them because it was a prior version.
Click to expand...

You mean the ASR disks? They would require that the Win2000 installation was
still operable to be useful.
System is now showing 4 OSs, 3 of which won't work because of missing
"sys32....whatevers?". Maxed out on 2x40GB drives.
Click to expand...

Boot the one that works, run msconfig and on the boot.ini tab click the
button to 'check all boot paths'. It should remove the invalid ones.
Backed up all to a 100GB External drive and managed to reformat "D", but
"C"
won't - no matter how much I delete - which, I understand now was not a
good
move, either!!
Click to expand...

You wouldn't want to delete everything or format C:, as it is likely still
the active partition and houses the boot files.
How do I delete the 3 inoperative systems? Can't remember how to get
back
to MS-DOS screen with all the abbreviations; "format", "chdsk", etc.
Click to expand...

Already mention that. MSDOS would only be useful if you are using a strictly
FAT32.

Frankly, when your system crashed the worst thing you can do is attempt an
upgrade. You need to know what crashed it first and fix the problem.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

"(e-mail address removed).(alt e)" <[email protected].(alt
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"(e-mail address removed).(alt e)" <[email protected].(alt
e)@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
PC w 2000 OEM O/S - no disc. Crashed!

Bought XP Upgrade but it said "2000 not valid".

Loaded copy of XP Pro Full Version but it added rather than overwrote
2000.

Tried to revert back to 2000, but "restore floppies" not only didn't work
but XP disabled them because it was a prior version.

System is now showing 4 OSs, 3 of which won't work because of missing
"sys32....whatevers?". Maxed out on 2x40GB drives.

Backed up all to a 100GB External drive and managed to reformat "D", but
"C"
won't - no matter how much I delete - which, I understand now was not a
good
move, either!!

How do I delete the 3 inoperative systems? Can't remember how to get
back
to MS-DOS screen with all the abbreviations; "format", "chdsk", etc.
Click to expand...


8.3 filenames allow use of the first 8 or less letters if an exe or com
file. Not an abbreviation.

Based on your input, I would wipe all partitions on the onboard hard drive
with the XP setup CD, and do a clean install of XP on a new partition.
Leave the external hard drive disconnected until all is completed.
 
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