i just bought a copy of XP pro, i hated having Home, the first copy i downloaded and was a bad cd key so it never would boot to the desktop. i went out and bought a copy of Pro, booted from cd, repair upgrade, then reboot and install windows. then when thats done the same crap happens, before i get to the loading screen my pc reboots and asks me if i want to start windows normally or in Safe. no matter what i choose the same reboot happens and the process is unending. i know it works because i installed it on a spare 40 gig HD i had lying around and it works fine (except for when i scroll down a web page, it doesn't move smoothly, it does a sweeping motion: frame by frame).

Sounds like you have XP Home and Pro installed on your primary HDD. You can use G-parted to format your primary HDD to NTFS and and install XP Pro. Download G-parted here:

SourceForge.net: Downloading ...

Download the iso. Burn it to CD with ImgBurn. Drag and drop the iso into burn and burn it to CD at 12x or 16x. Then place the G-parted CD into your computer with the boot issues. Go into your computers bios and set it to boot from your CD/DVD drive. Usually to access the bios you tap delete at bootup. If you have an OEM (prebuilt) PC, then it might be F2 or F12. Check your owner's manual or the manufacturer's website to be sure. Save the changes and reboot.

Once you boot into g-parted, format both partitions and combine them into a single NTFS partition. Here's a guide for using g-parted: sidux Manuals - Gparted

Once they are formatted into a single NTFS partition, then you can install XP Pro off disc and you should be fine. Remember that formatting your PC will delete any data that is currently on your HDD.

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yeah well, i installed xp pro, but it wiped all of my C:\WINDOWS files, including my profiles. so i can get into my hd and my files are still there, but i cant get the important ones in my docs. which is password protected. is there some way to access that in anyway. and what about the scrolling whats up with that?

The scrolling could have be a video driver or browser issue. Does it happen anywhere other than your web browser? If it happens all throughout PC, then make sure your video driver is up to date and installed. If it only happens in your web browser, then go to your browser settings and make sure smooth scrolling is enabled. In FireFox I believe the option is auto scrolling under tools-->options-->advanced. For IE it's located under internet options-->advanced-->enable smooth scrolling.

As far as your documents being password protected, did you lose the password? You may be able to use a Linux Live CD to browse the contents of your Hard Disk. As far as getting around the password, I'm not sure on that one to be honest. If you can browse the contents of your Hard Disk freely with a Linux Live CD, perhaps you can backup them up to an external HDD or flash drive. You can download an Ubunutu Live CD here: http://releases.ubuntu.com/hardy/ubu...sktop-i386.iso

Burn the iso to disc, pop it in your PC and see if it will allow you to browse the contents of your Hard Disk.

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yeah i tried using a mandriva live, and even installed it on that other HD, but it wouldnt acces the hd, maybe i need to run the live cd on this one. i'll give that a shot. thanks, yeah i have yet to install the drivers for my pci vid card 8P

Yeah I was suggesting that you use the Live CD on the computer where you are having the reboot issues.

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