Topic: I've never encountered this before

[mjs1138]

Hello.  I installed SME Server on a PC w/ a SATA drive.  I then needed to reinstall WinXP.  I booted the XP2 sp2 disk in the CD drive and rebooted the system.  The BIOS offers the boot from CD optiion, which I choose.  The process begins to do "examining configuration" as a normal install would do.  But never gets any further; the hard-disk light stay lit and no further action occurs.  I pulled the drive from the PC, installed it in a exact same model (Dell GS280) and tried the process again; exact same response.  I then installed a brand-new SATA drive in the original machine; process worked as expected.  So .... what is it about having installed SME Server that renders this drive un-????

Thanks for your input

--- Mike

[crazybob]

Try checking out this thread from a few days ago

http://forums.contribs.org/index.php?topic=39835.0

Bob

[uniqsys]

So .... what is it about having installed SME Server that renders this drive un-????

Thanks for your input

--- Mike

The drive is still usable. Don't worry.  SME server has not killed it, it is just that SME does not use NTFS as a file system as Win XP does.  Windows chokes when it doesn't see itself. Try deleting the partitions which were created by the SME install. (Of course you will lose everything on that hard drive when you do that, but you know that right?)  Reboot and try re-installing Win XP again.  It should see a "clean" drive and proceed normally.  I saw a post just this week on something like this but I can't find it now.

You're welcome

[mjs1138]

Hi Bob & uniqsys, thanks for the responses.  I've got the system reloading as I write this.  Indeed deleting the Linux partitions did the trick as out lined by the link in Bob's posting.  Thanks for your quick and accurate help.  --- Mike

[CharlieBrady]

So .... what is it about having installed SME Server that renders this drive un-????

You should ask Microsoft - it's their software which isn't working.

[mjs1138]

Charlie, no quibble w/ that. Thanks for a great tool.  --- Mike