HELP! Clean install on new HD with ME upgrade disk only?

[murph]

Hi, my son got a new hard drive (WD caviar 80 gb), it is an OEM with no paperwork, disks etc. The only Windows disk we have is Windows ME upgrade.

The HD is detected fine but now what do we do? It asks for a boot disk. We made one on my other son's computer but then all we get is a help page come up on the new HD computer with all sorts of options for installing windows. It says we can do a "clean install" with only the Windows ME upgrade disk but we then can't get any more info on how to do this.

I have windows ME too and thought maybe I could just copy the whole version from my HD to this new one but when I add that HD to my machine I get one of 2 things:
1) my machine detects the HD (I have a 40 gig) but it now reads that I have 120 gig HD...adding the 2 together so no way to copy one to the other.
2) if I attach it to my Cd rom cable and detach from the CD rom, I get firstly "drive is not atapi compatible" and then when I go to setup and "detect all HD" it is detected fine but when I go to "my computer" the 2nd HD does not appear, no drive letter, nothing. When I check it in system under control panel it says it is working fine but will not allow me to assign a drive letter.

HELP I am going nuts with this!! How do I just get the windows on this HD and get my son's computer going?!!!!!

[Surge1243]

You can only do a clean install from the ME upgrade disk if you have proof that you own a previous Windows OS, namely a Windows 98 or 95 setup disk/CD (or even Windows 3.1). Otherwise you can only do an upgrade. You can make an exact disk-to-disk copy using Western Digital's Data Lifeguard tools although how you're describing it sounds like piracy because you're using one valid copy for two computers.

[murph]

Can I amend here that I am NOT particularly too computer literate when it comes to this stuff so keep any responses simple

To background, I have no disks for any windows except for this upgrade disk. I bought all our systems used with win98 already installed and they never gave me any disks. Is that illegal or something? My son messed up his old hd which he has the original win98 plus the me upgrade on and I just want to get him up and running again.

[glc]

Put the old drive back in to his machine, boot with the ME CD and do a new install over the top of the existing version (make sure it's to c:\windows if that's where the existing install is located). This should fix whatever he did to it. I'm going to close your other thread as it's asking the same question.

[murph]

GLC - could you explain that further? Do you mean put the new HD into my son's machine all by itself? And then what? All the boot disk has on it is this help file and then there is no where to go. I get a dos prompt but it won't let me even change to anything but A drive.

And do you mean that the me upgrade CD (remember I don't have the full version) is enough to do an install? If so, how do I do that from an A dos prompt (floppy disk, not cd drive) and a blank HD?

If you could walk me thru it that would be so much appreciated. And you are saying that the same process would also fix the other HD where my son deleted the winini file?

[glc]

No - put the OLD drive back into his machine - the one that has the damaged Windows installation on it. I'm not even talking about putting a new hard drive in - YET. You need to fix what's wrong with Windows on his OLD drive first before you can replace his hard drive - if you even NEED to replace it, which I doubt unless he wants a bigger drive. We can cover this procedure later when you get the existing one all squared away.

Put the ME cd in the CD drive, set the CD drive to be the first boot device in the computer BIOS setup, and boot to the CD. It will boot to a menu, choose Setup Windows. It will then proceed just like when you first installed Windows. The upgrade CD will be fine for this, as it's a reinstall of an existing version. Make *SURE* you choose the SAME directory path that Windows is installed in, which *should* be c:\windows.

Please keep all issues relating to this problem in THIS thread, multiple threads break continuity and cause a lot of confusion.

[murph]

GLC - thanks for taking the time to help.

OK, so far here is the scoop when trying to use your method outlined above. It keeps reading CD boot failure, insert disk and press any key....but the disk is already in there.

If I let it just start up normally, here is what I get.

1) When it gets to the desktop, I have 16 colors. I get a message saying "/P cannot be found....". Have no idea what this is.

2) I can use the mouse. When I go to my computer and double click on say control panel, I get a message saying something like "Your security settings prevent ActiveX from... this page may not be viewed properly:... And so what happens is nothing shows up in the window but there is a drop down menu in the address bar and from there I can sort of look at some stuff, but each time I get this "security settings" message and so can't get very far before I am told I can't do anything. Does that make sense?

What the heck are security settings and how can I fix this? I am continuing to monkey with it to try to get it to boot to just the CD drive.

I am confused!

[glc]

Okay - why don't you try this - when you are in Windows (or what's passing as Windows) try to do a System Restore. Pick a restore date from before he destroyed it.

Click the Start button.
Point to Programs, point to Accessories, point to System Tools, and then click System Restore.
Choose Restore my computer to an earlier time, and then click Next.
Click a day on the calendar, click the restore point description, and then click Next.
Make sure you have closed all your files and open programs, and then click OK to close the dialog box.
Click Next.

If this doesn't work, put the ME cd in, and see if you can access the CD through My Computer or Windows Explorer. If you can, just double click on Setup and reinstall Windows that way.

Edit - I'm concerned as to WHY it won't boot to the CD - Windows has absolutely nothing to do with this. The CD is damaged (or it's a burned copy - they aren't always bootable) - or you have a hardware issue - bad (or just LOOSE) IDE cable on the CD drive, misjumpered (or BAD) CD drive, bad motherboard controller, or something like that.

[murph]

GLC - well I am ready to rip my hair out

In setup the Cd rom and the HD are detected fine.

I have the boot to the CD only (have tried with boot 1st to Cd and then to HDD-0 as well).

So when it gets to the prompt "Boot from CD", I get this:
wininit.exe missing/unable to load
Press any key to continue

So what the heck is the deal?!!!!!

So I press a key and then get to the so called grey desktop. No where in my computer does it even list the CD rom. Just C and A. If I click on A I get a message that the disk is not formatted, would I like to do so now? That is with or without a disk in A.
No luck finding the CD rom

I can right click on my computer and get to system info. There are yellow exclamation marks on 2 floppy disk controllers - says something about drivers but then says the best one is being used. Also says something about configuration.

there are yellow exclamation marks on 2 of 3 items under hard disk controllers, same kind of stuff.

No where can I find the cd rom in there either.

By exploring C drive I can get to various menu trees but once you click on all the plus marks and get to the final item, you can't go any further, nothing happens, just blank. So for instance I can find accessories and restore etc but can't actually use any of them, right click on them etc, just blank window.

START BUTTON DOES NOT WORK! Click on it and it stays clicked and nothing happens.


UGHHHHH

At the same time I have checked the jumpers on my own HD and the new 80 gig (the one that actually works) and plugged them both into my own system as master (my old hd) and slave (the new hd). Both are detected in setup but again no drive letter for the new drive, just blank. I thought I could at least go back and copy windows me over for him and use the new drive but same old problem.

So what do I do with both situations? THANKS for all the help!!

[glc]

The reason the new drive is not showing up in My Computer as a drive letter is because it's not partitioned yet. You can't stick a drive in your machine and "just copy over" WinME, it doesn't work that way.

Let's see - flagged drive controllers - missing files - can't boot from the CD - I think you have a major hardware problem. If it were just Windows problems, I'd say the hard drive was eaten up by a virus but the failure to boot from the CD points to hardware - such as bad ram or motherboard. How about some detailed system specs?

There is ONE thing you can do - you can give him an exact clone of your hard drive. Use the Western Digital software (it's a free download if the drive didn't come with a disk) to set up the drive in your system. Slave the new drive to yours and boot with the software floppy. Install the new drive (note - your drive is Drive 0 and the new one is Drive 1) and choose the option to copy Drive 0 to Drive 1.

***NOTE*** If the install says your BIOS is not able to handle the size of the drive and offers to install EZ-Bios, *STOP* and go no further, this is NOT going to work and will cause problems with YOUR drive.

You can then put the drive into his machine and boot it into SAFE MODE. Then follow the instructions in the thread in our Tips and Tricks forum concerning the "ENUM key".

[andyms18a]

remove the old hard drive install the new hard drive and down load a win98 boot disk from http://www.bootdisk.com/ then boot the computer with the boot disk and at the a: type fdisk and hit enter then enter again then chose option 1 and make a dos partition and make it active then reboot the computer and type format c and hit enter when its finished shut the computer down and get the old hard drive and change the jumper settings on the back to slave and plug it in on the same cable as the new drive in the middle connector then start the computer wit the win 98 boot disk and chose with cdrom support look at the screen for the drive letter the CD drive is given then insert the win-me CD and type the letter the CD drive was given IE if the CD drive is Q type Q: and hit enter
then type setup and hit enter when windows setup asks for a qualifying product select browse and point it to the D drive witch has your old copy of windows on it

[murph]

GLC and Andyms, thanks for the posts.

I think part of where I am getting messed up here is that there are 2 separate problems with 2 separate HD's and it's so darned complicated.

As far as the possible other system problems GLC with the 20 gig drive with the missing wininit.exe, I can put that drive into my system and everything is exactly the same issues so I don't think it's my son's MB or ram, but then again I could be wrong.

What if I format the 20 gig drive and then I have 2 blank drives and can clone my own good hard drive to both of those? Would that work? And do I follow Andyms method to do that for both, using my own hd as the one to point to with the qualifying product thing?

The most important thing at this point is for me to at least get the new 80gig working.

As far as system info:
son's machine - AMD 1 ghz, 128 ram
my machine - AMD 1700, 512 ddr ram, 40gig WD HD

Does that help? Thanks again for all this help

[andyms18a]

the problam with cloning your hard drive or instaling windows on your computer is the drivers are difrent and our thow you can do the enum trick its a messey prosess as for a lot of the resetup of the drivers you dont have cd rom support try it my way first then try glc way if it dont work