need ideas on installing xp pro 64bit

[imported_shader]

every student at my school can get free copies of xp pro 32bit, xp pro 64 bit. you just have to give a lab assistant a blank cdrom and they will give you a copy. i have a working copy of xp pro 32 bit. i want to install 64 bit. the disk they gave me for 64 bit is not bootable.

i just tried an old boot floppy disk that i had with cdrom support (i figured it would boot up fine and then i could run setup from the cdrom drive, but it failed to load the cdrom) but that's not working.

i tried a boot floppy with cdrom support that i downloaded, it did not work. i'm trying right now to use the xp pro setup disks (from a MS utility, makes 6 floppies), but the two times i have tried it, i get errors on different disks, so i am formatting and trying again.

i also tried to download an image that i could boot from my usb drive, but that did not work (nothing showed up on my flash drive).

i can get another copy of xp 64, but that will probably take a few weeks (is summer right now and lab assistants are not at school). is there any way i can start the 32bit setup from boot and then switch it to 64 (switch disks)? or can i update to 64 bit from 32 bit?

any ideas here guys? (and i won't consider go f myself as an idea )
thanks

 

[hennessy1]

have you tried using another cd drive?

 

[imported_shader]

Originally posted by: hennessy1
have you tried using another cd drive?

i do have another cdrom drive available, however the one i have works just fine. my problem is that the cdrom i want to boot from (win xp pro 64 bit) is not a bootable cdrom (i can however boot from the win xp pro 32 bit cdrom just fine).

EDIT: are you suggesting that i boot from the 32bit cdrom and have the other cdrom in the other drive (run both drives at once?)

 

[hennessy1]

What about trying this download the trial version?