Installing both English & Chinese versions of Windows XP

hotzeminghotzeming
edited December 2004 in Science & Tech
I have English version of Windows XP in my pc. I tried to add the Chinese version Windows XP by using the BootMagic of Partition Magic 8.0, but I failed. Everytime when I tried to boot with the Chinese version Windows XP CD, it said that it was not system CD and so it could not boot up for me to do the installation. If I just put the Chinese version CD into the CDROM, I could get the main menu. But when I chose install the Chinese Windows XP, it then said that the existing OS (English version Windows XP) is newer than the Chinese version Windows XP, and it did not allow me to continue to the installation. Please help me.

Comments

  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    So use partition magic to put 2 partitions on your drive.

    Then reboot with the Chinese version in your cdrom and if it's a working bootable copy it will boot up to the cd and you should be able to start the install. Just install it to the 2nd partition. When it's all said and done you should be able to boot between the two versions.

    What it sounds like is happening for you is you are putting the cd in while in windows. It then sees you already have xp installed and therefore won't do the upgrade.
  • hotzeminghotzeming
    edited November 2004
    kryyst wrote:
    So use partition magic to put 2 partitions on your drive.

    Then reboot with the Chinese version in your cdrom and if it's a working bootable copy it will boot up to the cd and you should be able to start the install. Just install it to the 2nd partition. When it's all said and done you should be able to boot between the two versions.

    What it sounds like is happening for you is you are putting the cd in while in windows. It then sees you already have xp installed and therefore won't do the upgrade.

    Hi Kryyst,

    Thanks for your information. I did try booting by putting the cd NOT while in windows. But it just did not boot up and just said it is not system cd. Is there a way to get around it?
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    could be that it's just not a bootable disk. As for getting around it I'm not sure of the best way to do it. I can't remember if there is a set of boot floppies for XP I know there is a set for win2k. Now they may work also work for XP but I'm not sure.

    Another way you may be able to trick it. If you split the partition and install win98 on the 2nd partition and boot into it then do the upgrade that may work.
  • hotzeminghotzeming
    edited November 2004
    kryyst wrote:
    could be that it's just not a bootable disk. As for getting around it I'm not sure of the best way to do it. I can't remember if there is a set of boot floppies for XP I know there is a set for win2k. Now they may work also work for XP but I'm not sure.

    Another way you may be able to trick it. If you split the partition and install win98 on the 2nd partition and boot into it then do the upgrade that may work.

    Hi Kryyst,

    Thanks for your help again.
    I have tried your second suggestion, that is install win98 first and do the upgrade to Chinese winxp. When I tried to boot with the win98 CD, the same situation happened as in the case of the Chinese winxp.

    Below is the detail texts shown on the screen.

    "Invalid system disk"

    When I hit enter, then the following texts was shown.

    "EZ-BIOS: Initializing......."
    "EZ-BIOS: Hold the CTRL key down for status screen or to boot from floppy..."
    "EZ-BIOS: Continuing start up ......."

    When I hit enter again, then the following texts was shown.

    "NO PT"
    "Insert disk,"
    "press a key"

    Will this be caused by the EZ-BIOS? My pc is with a 160G Maxtor hard drive. But Windows XP can only reconize about 120G hard drive space. I checked with Maxtor and they asked me to install their "Big Drive Enabler" (Drive-Overlay Program) and Windows XP SP1 if I wanted to get the full capacity of 160G. I did followed their advice and have 160G space from the hard drive.

    When I tried to install the win98, I did tried to boot using other boot disk and then use the "setup" command to install win98. It did start the set up. But it only offer a single choice of installing in Drive C instead of showing different partitions for me to choose. Then I did not go further because I am afraid that the data in Drive C will be deleted.

    May I have any further advice from you?
  • lordbeanlordbean Ontario, Canada
    edited November 2004
    the key point to realize here is that winows OSes (especially pre-2000 core, I think 2k and XP might be an exception to this) have to be installed in the first 8GB or so of the drive. If they are not installed in that area, the OS will not be bootable, because it won't be able to find itself. As for selecting a partition, it may remove files from the one you pick, but it shouldn't touch any of the others.
  • hotzeminghotzeming
    edited December 2004
    lordbean wrote:
    the key point to realize here is that winows OSes (especially pre-2000 core, I think 2k and XP might be an exception to this) have to be installed in the first 8GB or so of the drive. If they are not installed in that area, the OS will not be bootable, because it won't be able to find itself. As for selecting a partition, it may remove files from the one you pick, but it shouldn't touch any of the others.

    Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Could you please use simple term to tell me what is wrong?
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited December 2004
    do you have actually have a C and D partition? Or are you just using some software based partition image that only exists at the OS level?
  • hotzeminghotzeming
    edited December 2004
    kryyst wrote:
    do you have actually have a C and D partition? Or are you just using some software based partition image that only exists at the OS level?

    When view from PartitionMagic, there are 2 primary partitions. One is with letter "C", but the other partition (the one that I created for the chinese version of Windows XP) is without a letter. I thought that partition is inactive and so the letter "D" will not be shown. Is there something wrong?
  • hotzeminghotzeming
    edited December 2004
    hotzeming wrote:
    When view from PartitionMagic, there are 2 primary partitions. One is with letter "C", but the other partition (the one that I created for the chinese version of Windows XP) is without a letter. I thought that partition is inactive and so the letter "D" will not be shown. Is there something wrong?

    I mean when viewed from PartitionMagic, under "Status", the drive C (the partition with the original English Windows XP) is "Active" and the other partition is "Hidden" (what I mean inactive) and without drive letter.
    I have another hard drive in that pc. Under "Status", it is "None" and the drive letter is "E".
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited December 2004
    That could be part of the problem when installing windows it's got to be able to see the partition. It's got to be a real partition see able from windows 98's fdisk program.
  • hotzeminghotzeming
    edited December 2004
    Then what should I do?
  • kryystkryyst Ontario, Canada
    edited December 2004
    You can make a propper partition with partition magic you have to resize the existing partition and then it'll make a new one. Then you need to boot up with the win98 cd and use the fdisk command. That'll partition the 2nd partition on the drive. If it's not showing up in fdisk then you are doing something wrong and not making a propper partition. Once you have the correct partition again boot up with the win98 cd and format the 2nd partition that'll make it fat32. You can then install win98 onto it and when it comes up asking where you want to install windows chance the default from c:\windows to d:\windows.

    Once win98 is installed you won't be able to boot to it without a boot loader because windows has to reside on the primary partition to boot. So get a boot loader that resides in your MBR (master boot record) There are a bunch Lilo is an easy linux based one that you should be able to find but there are others.

    Once that's done boot into win98 and install the Chinese XP disk you should then be able to upgrade the 98 partition.
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