David_L6

A friend of mine just dropped off his computer and wants me to install XP Pro. It now has XP Home. My first thought was to take his drives out (2 drives in RAID 0), format them on one of my computers, re-install into his computer, and then install the OS. If all that isn't needed I'd just as soon not spend all the time required to do all of that. I've never tried to install an OS over an already installed OS..... What's the best way to do what I'm trying to do?

madmatt

If it were me (since I hate "upgrades") I would back up his data, reformat the drives using Windows Setup, and reinstall XP Pro.

You will likely need the RAID drivers and have to press F6 as Windows Setup starts.

epk

yeah, upgrades are not that good... i would do as madmatt said

btw... if you wanna format them, can't you do it in his computer?

Vanquished

Yeah.
Back up his data and do the reformat via windows.
Don't bother taking the drives out and doing it on your pc.

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David_L6

I don't have to worry about doing a backup. He said he has everything he wants on an external hard drive.

I had all kinds of problems getting my new computer running a couple of months ago. Wasn't detecting hard drives.... couldn't get RAID to work.... just about everything you can think of! I finally formatted my hard drives in another computer and then the install couldn't have been easier. (That was with an Intel "Bad Axe 2" motherboard and XP Home.)

I'm going to give it a try the way you guys recommend in just a minute.

David_L6

Man..... I have to be doing something wrong...

Kept getting an error message of some kind and his system wasn't detecting his floppy drive so I gave up, took the hard drives out, formatted them on my computer, put them back in and..... I am now formatting the pair (RAID 0) in his computer!

It sure is a lot easier to install Windows on a single drive than on a RAID 0 set up. I'm now 0 for 2 on trouble free RAID 0 installs......