Installing OS on computer w/o CD Drive

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jmr061
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Installing OS on computer w/o CD Drive

Post by jmr061 »

Ok, have a mobile computer that has no CD drive and a usb CD drive does not work on boot up. It has win2000 and needs to be changed to XP due to an application issue not working in 2000. I can remove the hard drive and usb it to another computer. How does one go about "imaging" XP on to the mobile hard drive so that when its installed back in the mobile computer and booted it loads the XP and installs?

Thanks for the help computer gurus.

Jason
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kb0nly
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Post by kb0nly »

A couple options, you could copy the entire contents of the XP cd to a directory on the hard drive and run it from windows 2000 as a upgrade install after putting it back into the laptop and booting.

Or, if you get an adapter to connect the laptop drive to the desktop you can use the desktop to install XP to that hard drive and then after it's fully installed remove the drive and put it into the laptop and boot up, of course then it will have to redetect all the hardware, etc.. And it will also cause problems with the XP activation if you activate it on the desktop then put the drive in the laptop, etc.

Of course you could image an existing XP computer with something like Acronis True Image, the one i use on all my computers, or Norton Ghost, or even the free Maxtor MaxBlast utility. Do a drive to drive copy of an existing XP install on another computer. Again you will have a duplicate of the install from that computer and all the hardware will be redetected on the first boot, and it might take some work reconfiguring drivers, etc.. But it is do-able!
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jmr061
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Post by jmr061 »

Is there a way to put the xp cd on the formatted laptop hd and then put the hd back in the laptop and get it to start the install setup?

Jason
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kb0nly
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Post by kb0nly »

Maybe...

I don't know for sure since i haven't ever tried it. You could format the drive using another computer via USB, create a folder/directory and copy the entire contents of the XP cd into that directory. Then boot up with a windows boot disk from bootdisk.com and try running the setup from the directory that you saved XP to.

The only problem is that XP install generally wants to format the drive, since your installing from the drive as well that would obviously be bad. You might have to split the drive up using the USB on another computer and have a small seperate partition to copy the CD contents to. Keep the partition that you copy the cd to a FAT32 partition so there isn't any problems reading it when using a boot disk. And then just use the XP setup to format the other partition to NTFS when you install.

After your done installing you could just delete the extra partition since you rarely need the XP cd after install, unlike windows 98 where you need it from time to time when installing drivers and so forth.
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Bob
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Post by Bob »

I typically take a utility like Partition Magic and create a partition on the existing HD large enough to copy the files from the OS CD. Assign it a drive letter and make it visible on boot-up. Then boot from a floppy and run the new OS setup from the secondary parition you created. Just make sure you don't do anything to that partition when you install the new OS.

I keep the partition there, but hide it, in the event I need to rebuild the machine again in the future. With disk sizes getting as big as they have been lately, what's 600 megs?

Works for me every time.
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Post by kb0nly »

I've done just that plenty of times with 95, 98/SE, 2k, but i haven't tried it with XP yet.

I think i might have to try it just to see for myself. Although there is no reason it shouldn't work as long as a bare essentials boot disk was used, otherwise XP might complain about something else being loading in the background.
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ka8ypy
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Post by ka8ypy »

Could you copy the contents of the XP cd to a usb memory stick that has been formatted as a bootable device ( see http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?t=55522 for info) and then load the OS from the memry stick?

Just my .02 worth

DB
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alex
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Post by alex »

Jason,

Here's what you need:

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... &CatId=470

and...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... C184-17705

What this will allow you to do is to mount the hard drive on another computer using USB 2.0 (this is faster than 1.0).

On the computer that you want to do the work on, format the drive as bootable. Copy the complete contence of the XP install to a directory on the hard drive, and you should then be able to put the laptop hard drive back in to the computer and simply boot it up, change to the XP install directory, and type setup.

This should allow you to then install XP.

If you send me the XP CD, and the HD, I have both of the adapters posted here (we have bus loads at work) and I can do it, but I need the drive by tomorrow since I won't be at work next week.

-Alex
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440roadrunner
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Post by 440roadrunner »

Copy the complete contence of the XP install

What you really need is the \I386 directory off the XP CD. To launch the install from that directory, either from the CD or after copying to a hard drive, is winnt.exe----and NOT setup.exe

Also, I keep seeing here and there that smartdrv should be loaded (from dos)
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Post by techie »

Don't forget any special partitions that the laptop may require (suspend_to_disk comes to mind..)
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jmr061
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Post by jmr061 »

NONE OF THIS HAS WORKED!!!!! The hard drive needs to be NTFS. I need something that boots from floppy so that NTFS is visible. I have found nothing that will do that. How can I make the HD bootable in NTFS without an operating system on it????

Jason
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Post by firegood »

have you tried running the xp setup with the usb cdrom drive from within win2000. This should eliminate your problem, it will upgrade it for you.
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Post by jmr061 »

WIN2000 is corrupted and wont boot. I have formatted the HD.

Jason
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Post by 440roadrunner »

You do NOT need NTFS, and there are several ways to approach the problem

Please elaborate on "none of this has worked" ---I don't know what that means.


What have you got for a DOS mode boot system so that you can read a CD and copy to the drive?

(By the way, you can also do this if you have a floppy for the laptop, by using something like the old laplink program, which you can download)

Here's at least one:

http://home.nordnet.fr/~jyjeannas/divers/


All you need is the one file program (ll3.exe) on a pair of floppies, with a cdrom driver for the desktop unit, and a serial or parallal "null modem" or data transfer cable. I find these cables every day in thrift stores. Look for a bright yellow cable for parallal (laplink, PCanywhere) or bright blue for serial. some of the serial cables are "4 headed"---they come with both 9 and 25pin connectors.


To make a drive bootable, you need something like this:

A desktop, with the aformentioned IDE cable adaptor, boot the machine with either a floppy or a W9x CD, and fdisk, format the hdd in FAT32, load smartdrv on the hard drive (when it boots), and copy the I386 directory off whatever you are installing, be it W2K or XP. When you get done (don't forget smartdrv) boot the hdd in the original machine, and change to your \I386 directory, then run winnt.exe

YOU DO NOT run setup to launch a DOS launched install
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Post by alex »

When your done, you can use convert to convert the file system to NTFS if it gets formatted as FAT32. You should be able to do this with no data loss (I've done it a few times).

Going NTFS gets you two notably better things: Directory security, and you can store files that are >2gb in size.

-Alex
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jmr061
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Post by jmr061 »

Ok got it done, had to do it as FATS32, boot with win98se boot disk, I had pulled the drive and used my laptop to load the i386 directory on it. Then put it back in and ran winnt.exe as Roadrunner explained and also HAD to run smartdrive before doing winnt.exe.

It loaded up with a few errors, said some files were missing but all seemed to go well otherwise, then yes I used partition magic to convert it to ntfs.

Now to do it all over again today.

VERY FRUSTRATING PROCESS. :roll:


Thanks

Jason
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kb0nly
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Post by kb0nly »

You can convert from FAT to NTFS from XP's convert tool after installing windows. I do it all the time when someone comes in and wants their hard drive to be NTFS instead. You won't damage windows or lose any data.

Click Start then Run
Type CMD in the Run box and click OK
At the Prompt type the following command: CONVERT C: /FS:NTFS
Answer Yes to any questions and then reboot the computer, it will convert when it reboots and your done. Doesn't take very long either.
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alex
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Post by alex »

Not unless your doing 200gb External USB drives :-D

Regardless, KB0NLY really has the best way of doing it - with the fancy convert tool, as I mentioned previously. He thankfully went the extra 10 feet, and hooked you up with the switches required.

-Alex
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PhillyPhoto
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Post by PhillyPhoto »

There's also a way of doing this if your BIOS supports PXE, and you have an ethernet adapter on the laptop, and a computer you can use as a server for the windows files...
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Post by 440roadrunner »

Ok, look, let's not get all hung up on FAT/ versus NTFS.

Heck just leave the darn thing as FAT32, the advantages:

If you come across some DOS based stuff that you need to transfer to the hard drive, then you'll be able to easily access the hdd from a floppy (W9x) based setup, either as a slave drive, or whatever. IF you ever get the "no cdrom" issue hanked out, then the CDROM drive will be easily configured for DOS transfers.

What I'm tryin' to say is: forget NTFS, you really don't need it.
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Post by 440roadrunner »

So, did you get it fixed?
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Post by kb0nly »

alex wrote:Not unless your doing 200gb External USB drives :-D

Regardless, KB0NLY really has the best way of doing it - with the fancy convert tool, as I mentioned previously. He thankfully went the extra 10 feet, and hooked you up with the switches required.

-Alex
I imagine that could be rather slow and painful.. LOL

NTFS is the best way to go these days, not only security but file handling. It's totally transparent to the user in most cases, but it's a lot better than being on FAT32.

However, in the case of sharing files around you can always have a small FAT32 partition as well for saving files but it's not really worth the effort.
Duct tape is like the force, it has a dark side and a light side and it holds the universe together.

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alex
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Post by alex »

convert really isn't all that bad. We were doing 200gb drives that were FAT32 from the factory in probably 30 minutes.

-Alex
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440roadrunner
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Post by 440roadrunner »

I certainly disagree that NTFS is a "must have," as you make it sound. FAT32 has worked pretty darn well for years with most of us, on some pretty large drives, too. In a situation such as this, seems to me that there are actually ADVANTAGES to FAT 32, simply from the access standpoint. On smaller drives, say 20-60GB, it really should not matter.

I certainly haven't found the much touted "security" issue to be helped significantly on NTFS. Most security issues I've run into weren't keeping security in good shape, it was people who misused things, like downloading some stupid screensaver they should not have.

I once went on an unrelated service call to a brand new back then dispatch center, running (then) NT4, and here the dispatcher had diddled around in one machine and figured out how to PLAY GAMES on the dispatch box. After I explained how angry our techs would be to come down there at ohdarkthirty some morning to find that the machine crashed because of some game, and how THAT wasn't in the warranty --I think we had a policy change there.


In other words, most security problems come from right in house.
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