Transfering files from 2000 to xp on same computer

[kcross]

My 2000 pro crashed and after 12 hours I gave up and purchased an xp home upgrade and loaded in onto my computer. Set it up so it would keep the files and folders from 2000 thinking set up would make them available on xp but I thought wrong. Xp does not list the files, folders and programs under the start menu or on my desktop. They are on my computer in the hard disk drive and in my 2000 pro My Document folder. My hard drive shows two operating systems when I start up, 2000 pro and xp home, in the same drive but 2000 pro still will not open. Do I now have two partitions on my drive or just one? My computer only shows one hard drive and files from both operating programs are on this drive.

My primary question: is there a way to get these programs to open in xp. I tried copy/cut and paste from the start menu in 2000 to the start menu in xp, also from document folder in 2000 to the document folder, all users, etc folders in xp and attempted to start them up from the folder but I either get an error message that it can't be opened as something is missing or nothing happens.

This is my business computer so I have programs that was sent to me via internet/email by other businesses I work with to send data and keep information so it will be rather time consuming and difficult, I think, to reinstall and then use the back up to install information to them.

I am also confused as to how this will work. If I reinstall a program, it will go to the same hard drive as it is already on so won't it override the old program and I will lose the data.

I have searched the internet trying to find information on how to do this but apparently most people do a clean install or transfer files from one computer/partition to another so can't find any information.

[makai]

While it is possible to fix the problems you're having, it's very difficult to do it via a forum/email type correspondence.

What you did shouldn't have created the mess that occured, however, seeing as you upgraded a "crashed" 2000 installation, anything could have happened.

The reason your programs don't work in XP is because during an installation, many programs write entries to the registry. Since XP is missing the registry entries, the programs will not run. It doesn't matter if you copy and paste every single program file, it still won't work without the registry entries... and trying to copy the registy entries is near impossible. However, some programs, are smart enough to create registry entries upon launch, so you might try to go to C:\Program Files and try to launch them from their own program folder.

The best thing to do is to back up your data files to CD, DVD, Flash drive, etc if you can access them, then format your drive, and reinstall the OS... either 2000 or XP. If you're going to run XP, and you only have an upgrade disk, you will have to install 2000 first, then upgrade to XP... then you will have to reinstall all your programs.

Sorry, this is probably not the type of help you might have been looking for, but bad installations are better off being reinstalled.

makai

[ZAGNUT]

if you managed to crash win2k then it must really be in bad shape. trying to upgrade it or do a repair is only going to kludge things up even more.

if you have a partition then move everything you want to keep over to D, including folders from documents and settings that have things like your bookmarks and email archives. then delete C, format and do a fresh install.

if you don't have a partition then back everything up to CDs, format the whole drive and partition it when you do the new install. for win2k with office, other programs and a heavy page file 5GB should be more than enough.



dave