ive just partioned my hard drive,i was really wary about doing it,bit it went ok until!! i couldnt get my original partition back again it kept booting to my new partition! i assumed i d have got a choice at startup but i didnt, also WIN. XP on my new partition wants me to activate it again!! surely i dont need to? please help thank you i used partition magic 8.

Ok, first of all, calm down, LOL. Repost and clearly explain to me exactly what your trying to do. If your just trying install XP then boot to the CD and let XP partition your drive or use the manufacturers Disc Setup disc (usually on a floppy and you can download from their website) and setup your partitions. TECHZAPORT OUT!!!

thanks, ive split my drive into two partitions both with XP INSTALLED,how can i swap between them? i dont get option at startup,and do i have to activate XP again! IVE ONLY PARTITION MY HARD DRIVE. if i use partition magic boot option in the programme menu i can move to other drive but i cant get back to original drive once there hope this makes sense.

Okay so it sounds like your attempting to do a dual boot with XP and XP...is that right? If so, what's the point? I know nothing about PM's bootmagic software. I'd suggest you take a look at your boot.ini file and edit that. You can get to it by right clicking My Computer-->Properties. Next go to the Advanced Tab-->Startup and Recovery Settings button. You should then see and Edit button. Go there and you should see a file that looks similar to this: [boot loader] timeout=3 default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating systems] multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect You'll probably have to add a few lines to the bottom of this. Do a google search or just search here (computing.net) for dual booting Windows XP/2000 and it the process should be the same. Again this is assuming your talking about dual booting Windows XP and 2000. Please let me know if this is what you talking about. TECHZAPORT OUT!!!