I have been waiting for a more knowledgeable person to reply to this, but I
have not seen one, so I will do my best.
I "think" that when you installed XP in a dual boot conformation, XP became
the boss. I suspect that it modified the booting process on your old drive.
Now, when you boot, the system looks for the XP stuff (looks and looks and
looks) and eventually settles for whatever ME stuff it finds. So then it
boots up. The hardware drivers for your cd-rom and other stuff may well
have been XP drivers, replaced when you installed XP over ME. Thus, they do
not currently work with ME.
The obvious solution is to re-install the disk that you removed, since all
worked before you removed it. Assuming that this is not a satisfactory
option, there are some other things that you can try. First, make sure that
your old disk is made Active (in FDISK) and make sure that it is jumpered to
be single or master, whichever is appropriate for the brand. Then,
re-install the drivers for the non-working hardware to the ME drivers.
(Find the hardware in Control Panel and look around for the tab that says
"install new driver.") The ME drivers should be on your ME o.s. disk or on
the hardware vendor's installation disk.
I have never gone back to an earlier o.s. like that, so I don't know what
"gotcha's" may be lurking around the corner.
If all else fails, you may have to completely reinstall ME. Even FDISK,
format, and clean installation may be necessary.
Can anyone else help?
Dean Kukral
----- Original Message -----
From: "Kirsten Goss" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2004 8:45 PM
Subject: [PCBUILD] I need PC help very badly
> 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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