Installing xp home on a dim. 3000 that is running xp pro

It might work, or it might not.

A more reliable way is to install a third-party IDE card (I assume you're using an EIDE drive) in the 3000 and install the needed driver. When you install the drive in the 2400, install the card temporarily and connect the drive to it for the first boot. On that first boot, XP will install the chipset drivers for the 2400; once that is done, you can shut down and remove the card.

rdunnill, Just a thought but can I install it on the 3000, c: drive instead of xp professional?

rdunnil, Thanks for your reply. I assume that the answer to the question is no, not without 3rd party help.

You don't need third party help to do this. I suggested a PATA adapter, because missing storage adapter drivers are the most common cause of BSODs when attempting to boot an XP install created for a different machine.

I'm not sure why you want to do this, as the 2400 already has an OS installed. Is it because the new hard drive is larger? In that case, the best solution is to image the current hard drive to the newer one; that way, nothing needs to reinstalled. You can use a product like Acronis TrueImage for this purpose.

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If you have it, why not use PC Restore to reset the 2400's hard drive to exactly the way Dell shipped it?

PC Restore will wipe the hard drive so personal files must be backed up first. PC Restore takes ~10 min to run. Reboot and press Ctrl-F11 when you see the narrow blue stripe flash across the top of the screen. Release both keys at the same time and follow the prompts.

Then just install the XP SP3 standalone service pack (free from Microsoft) and all other Microsoft updates for IE, etc , plus any other software you need.

yes, I am the original purchaser with the original cds. I will do a clean install on the 2400. I just did not want the down time. It takes me 13 hours to reformat/reinstall on my 3000. I will be doing it on the 2400 for the first time. Thanks.

I did not want to use the pc restore because I want to wipe the entire drive and leave just one big partition, but maybe I can do this and then clear off the extra partitions? Thanks will post back when I get the chance to try either a clean install or a pc restore.

It shouldn't take 13 hours to reinstall.

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Rohe, rdunnill, and muto: The only thing I change in the bios is to load the cd first for the boot sequence. As this is per instructions on Dell website, I do not believe that it is wrong. I am loading from a service pack 2 cd. As muto stated there are a lot of updates, programs, service pack 3 and everything else. The OS itself does not take a long time.

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On both these models, you have to turn OS Install Mode ON in BIOS setup (reboot and press F2) before starting a clean Windows install. If  you didn't do that on the 3000, maybe that's why it took so long..?? And during 1st reboot after installing Windows you have to go back into BIOS setup and turn OS Install Mode OFF again.  Note: CPU speed should be set to Normal in BIOS Setup on the 2400 too.

You'd need something like Partition Magic or other partitioning software to remove the PC Restore (and Dell Diagnostics) partition after installing Windows. But why bother? The PC Restore partition is small at only ~3.5 GB (and Dell Diagnostics is only ~40 MB). So you don't gain much space by deleting those partitions.

Seems to me that PC Restore is better because it reloads all the drivers and all the software that Dell installed, so all you need to do is update with the Service Pack and subsequent hotfixes for all Microsoft products.

Except this model has the OS Install Mode setting in BIOS that should be enabled while you reinstall, and then disabled during first reboot after installing Windows.

Later models don't have the OS Install Mode option.

Rohe, Thank you I will do this then and post back after I get the chance to do the reinstall.