Win XP Home boots to the wrong copy - change systemroot?

Martin B. Brilliant

I had XP Home installed on first hard drive, third partition (HD 0,
Part 2). I had a problem with it probably caused by wrong permissions
accidentally set up in the WINDOWS folder. A repair install failed
after deleting some files.

I installed another copy of XP Home on HD 0, Part 1 (second
partition). Both drives are primary partitions formated NTFS. The
current configuration is:

The "system drive" is the original Part 2, called C:. That's where
BOOT.INI is.

The "boot drive" is the new installation on Part 1, called R:. This is
where the active WINDOWS folder is.

BOOT.INI has only one Win XP entry, pointing to Part 2. Something in
Part 2 (C, I don't know what, sets systemroot to be R:\WINDOWS.

I do not have dual booting.

Using the new installation, I fixed the permissions on the C: drive.
Now I want to do a repair installation on the C: drive. The Windows XP
CD does not offer a repair installation.

If I can do a successful repair I want to boot to Windows on the C:
drive and get rid of the new installation.

If the repair is not successful I want to set up Part 1 (where the new
installation now is) as the C: drive acting as both system drive and
boot drive.

Question 1: how can I arrange for the XP install CD to offer a repair
installation on C:? If I format the R: drive would that do the trick?

Question 2: if the repair is successful, will that automatically set
systemroot to C:\WINDOWS?

Question 3: if the repair is not successful, how can I make Part 1
(which is now R: in the new installation) become system drive, boot
drive, and C:? Are there boot files I can rename, delete, or hide that
would do the trick?

Note that might be helpful: I have an old installation of Windows NT
on the second HD (HD 1) that can access the Windows XP drives, and a
Windows XP boot floppy that can boot to Windows NT. So if Windows XP
becomes unbootable because of changes I made, I can get to Win NT to
undo the changes.

I have not yet tried to activate the new XP installation. I still have
30 days to use it before I have to try.


Marty
Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

Andrew E.

Boot to xp cd,recovery,select (usually) 1 for C: Press enter for
password,type:
DiskPart In DiskPart,delete the partitions that are not needed,once
thru,press
ESC key,type:EXIT Reboot to xp cd,select install xp,repair this copy.
However,if it was my pc,i'd wipe all the partitions,create 1,& do a clean
install.
A repair takes as long as a clean install + wipes out all updates,if repair
works,
youve saved a "few" minutes,if it doesnt,youre back to reinstallation....

"Martin B. Brilliant" wrote:

> I had XP Home installed on first hard drive, third partition (HD 0,
> Part 2). I had a problem with it probably caused by wrong permissions
> accidentally set up in the WINDOWS folder. A repair install failed
> after deleting some files.
>
> I installed another copy of XP Home on HD 0, Part 1 (second
> partition). Both drives are primary partitions formated NTFS. The
> current configuration is:
>
> The "system drive" is the original Part 2, called C:. That's where
> BOOT.INI is.
>
> The "boot drive" is the new installation on Part 1, called R:. This is
> where the active WINDOWS folder is.
>
> BOOT.INI has only one Win XP entry, pointing to Part 2. Something in
> Part 2 (C, I don't know what, sets systemroot to be R:\WINDOWS.
>
> I do not have dual booting.
>
> Using the new installation, I fixed the permissions on the C: drive.
> Now I want to do a repair installation on the C: drive. The Windows XP
> CD does not offer a repair installation.
>
> If I can do a successful repair I want to boot to Windows on the C:
> drive and get rid of the new installation.
>
> If the repair is not successful I want to set up Part 1 (where the new
> installation now is) as the C: drive acting as both system drive and
> boot drive.
>
> Question 1: how can I arrange for the XP install CD to offer a repair
> installation on C:? If I format the R: drive would that do the trick?
>
> Question 2: if the repair is successful, will that automatically set
> systemroot to C:\WINDOWS?
>
> Question 3: if the repair is not successful, how can I make Part 1
> (which is now R: in the new installation) become system drive, boot
> drive, and C:? Are there boot files I can rename, delete, or hide that
> would do the trick?
>
> Note that might be helpful: I have an old installation of Windows NT
> on the second HD (HD 1) that can access the Windows XP drives, and a
> Windows XP boot floppy that can boot to Windows NT. So if Windows XP
> becomes unbootable because of changes I made, I can get to Win NT to
> undo the changes.
>
> I have not yet tried to activate the new XP installation. I still have
> 30 days to use it before I have to try.
>
>
> Marty
> Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ
>