need some guidence installing xp pro over an existing but unbootable copy of xp home. i am trying to upgrade to pro to hopefully fix my boot problem while not losing my already installed programs and data. would much appreciate someone walking me through. i booted to my pro cd hit enter to install xp. it then shows my exiting partition with home on it. my choice there is to install to that partiion, create new partition, and delete the partition. i chose install to that existing partition but the next screen say is it not recommended so i cancelled the setuup to get some advice.

Bad idea altogether!!! Let's troubleshoot for "no boot." Maybe you can start a new thread explaining exactly what led to the problem and the error message you get, if any. Does WinXP HOME EDITION (NOT Pro) have an option to repair an existing installation?? I don't remember... If so, use it. Other things to try: 1. Boot in Safe Mode 2. Boot from an emergency diskette. 3. Boot using Step-by-Step confirmation (F8) to find out exactly what's causing the problem. AMD Athlon XP 2700+ Asus A7V600-X 512 MB of DDR RAM GeForce FX 5200 (256 MB) Seagate 120 GB SATA

candrade123, let me give you a little more info. this xp home system crased and had to replace motherboard and ram. error that showed right before crash and now after is either lsass.exe or Isass.exe not sure which and text says - invalid parameter was passed to a service or function. i know one of these can be sasser related. to keep from being too wordy, could you take a look at my previous post and see if you have any suggestions? http://computing.net/windowsxp/wwwboard/forum/105677.html i can't boot normal or safe mode, same error. pulled drive and put as spare on another pc and scan showed clean with mcafee8 and online. can't get into recovery console because of adm. password which i don't think was ever entered and none of the other possible passwords work. was considering putting pro over home as a last resort or maybe trying fdisk /mbr but was kind of afraid to try it. what do you think?

I doubt XP Pro can repair a XP Home installation. As far as saving data it depends upon which data you want saved. If you install in the current Windows partition you will probably lose data in your Documents directory. Your programs will probably be still be in your Program Files directory but since your registry has been recreated reinstallation of your programs will probably be necessary anyways.

what if i installed xp home over itself. wouldn't that leave everything intact? my problem is, i can't get into the recovery console to try to repair. can't get past the admistrator password as i don't know it, don't think one was ever entered. any other suggestions would be very welcome. master boot record isn't seeing the existing operating system or vice versa.

here is a little update, maybe someone can guide me on what to try next? found my restoration CD that came with the computer and was able to boot to it. still having problems getting past password to recovery console. was able to get in twice, more later on that. when i booted to the CD i chose the repair option and system tried to repair and when setup screen came up showing installing xp and 39 minutes left i got the same "lsass.exe - invalid parameter" error window and even though the green progess bar kept moving, the install stayed at 39 minutes. when i click ok on the error window, it closes and reboots to this vicious circle i am in. as i said, a couple of times the recovery console didn't ask me for a password and let me in. i ran chkdsk /f and it found one or more errors and fixed them. when i rebooted, same isass.exe error. got into recovery console one more time and ran fixboot and fixmbr that someone suggested. when i rebooted, same isass.exe error. is there anyway to keep this window from poping up? it seems to halt everything when it does pop up. i feel that i am close and it i can get past it this system can be salvaged. any help would be appreciated.