Please excuse my lack of knowledge of computers. I need help on my PC and I
am a total putz. I know I shouldn't have changed my computer in any way and
now I think I'm suffering for it.

A few months ago I wanted to add a storage drive to my PC. I bought a hard
drive and installed Windows XP. My current (original) drive has Windows ME.
I was told that while my original ME drive would not be able to transfer
directly to my new XP drive (or see it in the list of drives), I would be
able to boot up into either drive and they would work independantly. I
hooked up the new drive, allowed the computer to boot up and recognize the
new drive and all I really had to do was set the time and date in setup. I
was able to boot every time into either drive by a question during startup
that asked if I wanted to start in Windows XP or Windows ME. Chosing either
would get me to either drive successfully. Everything worked out and I
seemingly had no problems.

I removed the new XP drive about 3 months ago, this leaving me only with my
original ME drive again. Iit then started taking about 3 minutes to boot up
and for some reason I still have to answer this question about what drive to
boot to (ME or XP) and I need help getting my computer to realize that there
is only one drive to boot to and to boot to it directly. That's issue #1

Issue #2 is that ever since I removed the second drive (the new XP drive) my
cd-rom has not worked. It is seen as a valid drive (on the only drive I have
now, the original ME drive), but does not recognize any disks.

Issue #3 is that as of today, my computer now does not show any zip drive at
all. It's disappeared off my drive list and doesn't light up or show any
sign of life on restart.

I am currently left with my original WindowsME hard drive and an A disk
drive and nothing else so I'm basically out of commission. I went into setup
and have removed any mention of any other hard drive serial number or boot
options.

I have no clue as to what to do to fix any of these problems and I am so
very in need of technical help. I really wish my computer just booted to the
original drive directly and that it saw cd-rom disks and the zip drive at
all.

Please help?
~kirsten goss.

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