This is an off-forum question for Derek W. I didn't post in the XP forum, because I don't know whether he's a regular there or not. So here goes : Reading through this forum like I usually do, I recall a post that wasn't relevant to any problem I had at the moment, but Derek replied to it, saying that he had set his optical drives as off in BIOS, but that they worked fine once Windows was booted (don't know what version;I'm assuming Win9.x) My question is : I have a similar predicament with an HP machine that I'm trying to install WinXP on. The CDROM works fine when it's booted to Windows 2000 Pro (which I'm trying to replace with XP), but I can't boot from CDROM to begin XP install. And if I try using setup floppies, I get a .sif file-source error, because I should be installing from the bootable CD. I guess my question is, if this is the default setting for the HP, what should I do with it? That's all. Thanks for anyone who's willing to help. Rich Dennis

Ok maybe I'm missing the point here but why can't you boot from a single win98 boot floppy with CD support then run setup from the XP CD in the CD drive Techy n Welsh

Yes it was W98SE and something of an aside I added to a posting. As part of a workaround to a long standing problem I have both of my CD drives uninstalled in BIOS. When I boot to Windows they work just fine. I've just tried a W98SE bootdisk with CD-ROM support and have no problem seeing the drives in DOS either. It moves my drive letters up by one, as is usual and expected. As for your problem, well I'm not very familiar with W2k or XP but the answer given in post #1 sounds as if it should do the trick. Derek.W

Is your bios set up to boot from the cdrom as the first device? I have a few (older) machines where the cdrom is set to NONE in the bios, but on power up, the machine finds the drive and displays "Found CDROM Model#" just before the POST screen. The machines will boot from this drive. I've been able to setup Win2K Pro and XP-Home with no difficulties. It's a good day when you learn something

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;307848

if I'm reading your post right,win 2000 bootup just fine and xp don't.that tell me that the xp you have is a copy and its not bootable.anyway if it want boot than you will need to get a windows 98 bootdisk that has smartdrv.exe on it'this will speed the process up some.boot the pc using the bootdisk and at the a prompt type this A:\smartdrv.exe hit enter once its install ai the a prompt type this A:\d:\ if this is your cd-rom drive letter d:\ at this point type this d:\cd\i386 than its looks like this d:\i386> than type this d:\i386>winnt.exe the installment will start...... but please understand it will copy the files to the hard drive than to an installment folder and than the installment start.... so it will take a little longer..and one more thing the winnt.sif file want work doing it this way so you will have to enter all the information...key code and so forth. when you think that you know it all! you know nothing

Here's the question I should have asked : When I enter CMOS setup in the HP, the only IDE device that's visible is the hard drive. No CDROM/RW is detected. But it is visible in Windows. Which, as I understand it, means that the XP CD will not be bootable. Okay. But, _should_ this be the case, or can it be remedied. I apologize for being unclear in my question;that's what I was primarily concerned with;the XP install anecdote was just background for it. If in fact this is a necessary/desirable state for the HP, then I'll use a 98SE bootdisk with large disk support and install XP that way. Sorry for the confusion. RD