i had windows xp installed on two hard drives on one computer. when it came to boot, it asked which one i wanted to start. well logging into the secondary xp, it started but no programs or files would open. so i formated it and installed Win ME. now when booting, it asks which one to boot. and it still shows 2 XP's. trying to start the ME drive, it says a file is missing, please reinstall it. is there a way to change the first (Wrong) XP to ME? Thanks for any Suggestions.

oh, and when i start internet explorer, my homepage, www.computing.net, the font is bigger then normal. yahoo.com is the same way. but if i go to any other sites, its fine. whats the deal with that?

Umm...ok, try this: Log in 2 ur XP drive, and then type this at the prompt: attrib -h -s -r x:\boot.ini (x stands for the drive WinXP is on) Then go to that drive, and open boot.ini with Notepad. Then, it should look like this: [boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect Change the last line, where it says Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition in quotes. Change it 2 Windows Me, or whatever u want it 2 show up on the boot menu. Just change that, the 0's are different in ur machine. Hmm...maybe it's still looking 4 Windows XP. But try that, it may work. ;) And 4 the 2nd post, u may have spyware. :( El-Trucha

hey El-Trucha, thanks for the reply. i changed it to ME and restarted it and it said ME, however when i try to start it, it says the following is either missing or currupt. <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll i just installed ME on it so i am curious to why its not there. if it is a part of ME.

hal.dll is part of the Win XP or Win 2ooo operating systems. Not Win ME Rich

Is your XP on the first drive in NTFS or FAT32? There is a way to get the ME to boot on the second drive but only if XP on the first drive is in FAT32. The standard rule of thumb when you want to dualboot is to start clean, instal the older operating system first on C drive then instal XP second. XP then automatically creates the dualboot menu and writes the necessary bootfiles that enable booting of either system. There is a big difference in bootfiles between a 9x operating system and NT/2K/XP which use what's generally referred to as an NT Bootloader. When you instal XP after ME the XP instal disk takes the 9X bootfiles and creates a new file named BOOTSECT.DOS The dualboot uses the NT loader and then points to either the NTLDR or BOOTSECT.DOS depending on which operating system you select at startup. In your case since you had XP installed on both drives there is no BOOTSECT.DOS file on your system. Deleting the second XP and installing ME on the second drive does not create a BOOTSECT.DOS file so if you subsequently did a fixboot/fixmbr command to re-enable your XP boot after the ME instal then you don't get the option to boot ME. If you have XP installed in FAT32 on your C drive then go to www.dougknox.com There you can find instructions on creating the necessary bootfiles. If your XP is in NTFS then you may be able to get a 3rd party bootloader to solve the problem. Bottom line, My recommendation would be to backup your stuff. format C. Instal ME on C then XP on D. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for life.