XP Professional upgrade problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Doug_H
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Doug_H

I am having major problems upgrading XP-Home to XP-Pro.
I have two brand new Gateways that came with XP-Home but
need XP-Pro. First thing I did was the XP-Pro upgrade. I
attempted the full install instead of the 'upgrade'
option (as recommended by a person that is usually pretty
good at this stuff!). All seemed fine, until I tried to
start setting up the PC's for the network (I have found
that it is best to ignore all networking and internet
prompts in the install wizards, and do this after the O/S
is installed) and found that I did not have a Local Area
Connection icon. The Hardware Manager confirmed that the
card was not there/working (it actually is, and shows up
fine when I am in XP-Home).

At this time, I dug out the Gateway restoration disk, and
recovered the PC to it's 'out of the box' state with XP-
Home running (all appears OK at this point).

I then attempted again to install XP-Pro, this time using
the upgrade option. Everything goes well until the
installation setup portion of the install completes, then
the PC goes into a loop of rebooting..partially...then
rebooting again...over...and over...and...

The only way i have found out of this loop, is to put the
restoration CD back in, boot from it and go back to XP-
Home. I have tried this four times now with the same
result. While in XP-Home, I have removed the Norton Anti-
virus that came on the PC, along with the Nero CD burning
software (as recommended by MicroSoft support). Nothing
seems to help.

Again, I have two new identical Gateways here, and have
had the identical problems step-for-step with each of
them.

Help! And thanks for any insight!!

Doug
 
Sounds like there may be some Gateway proprietary stuff there that xp pro doesn't like.

What does Gateway have to say?


I am having major problems upgrading XP-Home to XP-Pro.
I have two brand new Gateways that came with XP-Home but
need XP-Pro. First thing I did was the XP-Pro upgrade. I
attempted the full install instead of the 'upgrade'
option (as recommended by a person that is usually pretty
good at this stuff!). All seemed fine, until I tried to
start setting up the PC's for the network (I have found
that it is best to ignore all networking and internet
prompts in the install wizards, and do this after the O/S
is installed) and found that I did not have a Local Area
Connection icon. The Hardware Manager confirmed that the
card was not there/working (it actually is, and shows up
fine when I am in XP-Home).

At this time, I dug out the Gateway restoration disk, and
recovered the PC to it's 'out of the box' state with XP-
Home running (all appears OK at this point).

I then attempted again to install XP-Pro, this time using
the upgrade option. Everything goes well until the
installation setup portion of the install completes, then
the PC goes into a loop of rebooting..partially...then
rebooting again...over...and over...and...

The only way i have found out of this loop, is to put the
restoration CD back in, boot from it and go back to XP-
Home. I have tried this four times now with the same
result. While in XP-Home, I have removed the Norton Anti-
virus that came on the PC, along with the Nero CD burning
software (as recommended by MicroSoft support). Nothing
seems to help.

Again, I have two new identical Gateways here, and have
had the identical problems step-for-step with each of
them.

Help! And thanks for any insight!!

Doug
 
I am having major problems upgrading XP-Home to XP-Pro.
I have two brand new Gateways that came with XP-Home but
need XP-Pro. First thing I did was the XP-Pro upgrade. I
attempted the full install instead of the 'upgrade'
option (as recommended by a person that is usually pretty
good at this stuff!). All seemed fine, until I tried to
start setting up the PC's for the network (I have found
that it is best to ignore all networking and internet
prompts in the install wizards, and do this after the O/S
is installed) and found that I did not have a Local Area
Connection icon. The Hardware Manager confirmed that the
card was not there/working (it actually is, and shows up
fine when I am in XP-Home).

At this time, I dug out the Gateway restoration disk, and
recovered the PC to it's 'out of the box' state with XP-
Home running (all appears OK at this point).

I then attempted again to install XP-Pro, this time using
the upgrade option. Everything goes well until the
installation setup portion of the install completes, then
the PC goes into a loop of rebooting..partially...then
rebooting again...over...and over...and...

The only way i have found out of this loop, is to put the
restoration CD back in, boot from it and go back to XP-
Home. I have tried this four times now with the same
result. While in XP-Home, I have removed the Norton Anti-
virus that came on the PC, along with the Nero CD burning
software (as recommended by MicroSoft support). Nothing
seems to help.

Again, I have two new identical Gateways here, and have
had the identical problems step-for-step with each of
them.

Help! And thanks for any insight!!

Doug
Click to expand...

Suggestions:

When you did the clean install, what was at the root of the network
problem? XP didn't notice the adapter for the local network? Does Gateway
have separate drivers for this device available? If yes, try installing
those.

If trying the upgrade route again:

After getting XP Home in and running, take a look around at startup
programs and disable them (Start> Run> MSCONFIG> Startup). Get startup as
clean as possible so that you are as close to running XP only as you can
be.

The restart loop during setup can be software or hardware/driver related
but more often it is hardware or hardware drivers. Disconnect any extra
hardware not needed to run Windows. Since your systems are being a little
stubborn about the change to Pro, upgrade is probably a better choice over
a clean install.

Then run the upgrade for Pro. Hopefully the removal of startup programs and
disconnecting all but basic hardware will get you past that restart loop.

If successful, start enabling startup programs one at a time. Test each
before adding another. Then start adding back your peripheral hardware -
one device at a time.

If you still have problems, check to see if Gateway has a BIOS update for
these systems. If none is available, you're pretty much at the end of the
rope for things to try - for now. Later, newer drivers may be released for
your hardware that are more agreeable with the Pro upgrade.

Most XP Home to XP Pro upgrades go pretty smoothly but there are some
proprietary systems can be bears to change operating systems on. Eventually
needed drivers are found and all works out but it can take quite a few
tries to get it all together and working. As I'm writing this, am recalling
an old PB system that I changed from WFW 3.11 to Win95. It fought me every
step of the way but eventually found the magic combo (the right drivers) to
get it working under Win95. Years later, it was still working well when it
got ousted for more modern hardware.
 
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