FixMBR - Without booting from XP CD?

[Ben]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

Right now, I'm trying to install windows XP Pro onto a new blank drive,
while leaving my main drive bootable, but whenever my main
drive(Dualbooting XP home and fedora Core 3 with grub) is plugged in and
I try to use the XP cd to boot with, I get a Blank screen a few seconds
after I first see "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware
configuration".

I originally tried installing XP with the main drive disconnected but I
couldn't get it to boot properly from the boot menu(I suspect it had to
do with the fact that it was the first drive during install, but not
when it got chain loaded) but it would boot when I told the bios to boot
from it.


Someone suggested removing Grub bootloader with fixMBR, and that it
might make it so I could boot from the XP CD, But due to the fact that I
can't boot off of the CD when the main drive is connected to my system,
there is no way for me to run FixMBR(To my knowledge).

Does anyone have any ideas that might help?

Thanks,
Ben

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support (More info?)

"Ben" <user@domain.invalid> wrote in message
news:eiBnVoyIFHA.3336@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Right now, I'm trying to install windows XP Pro onto a new blank drive,
> while leaving my main drive bootable, but whenever my main
> drive(Dualbooting XP home and fedora Core 3 with grub) is plugged in and I
> try to use the XP cd to boot with, I get a Blank screen a few seconds
> after I first see "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware
> configuration".
>
> I originally tried installing XP with the main drive disconnected but I
> couldn't get it to boot properly from the boot menu(I suspect it had to do
> with the fact that it was the first drive during install, but not when it
> got chain loaded) but it would boot when I told the bios to boot from it.
>
>
> Someone suggested removing Grub bootloader with fixMBR, and that it might
> make it so I could boot from the XP CD, But due to the fact that I can't
> boot off of the CD when the main drive is connected to my system, there is
> no way for me to run FixMBR(To my knowledge).
>
> Does anyone have any ideas that might help?
>
> Thanks,
> Ben

I think you're looking in the wrong place for the problem. If you get to the
screen that says it's inspecting the hardware config, you already have
booted from the CD.

As far as data on the drive keeping the CD from booting, that's not
possible, because if it's reading from the hard drive, it's already made its
choice.