i have a laptop with a floppy and en external usb cdrom. the cdrom isnt being
recognized by the win xp setup. ive also tried some of the modded win 98
bootdisks with usb cd rom support but they all say there is no usb cd rom
installed. the laptop came to me formatted otherwise i would have done the
install from windows. i also have a win 2003 server that i have RIS setup on.
ive never used it so im not sure what im doing but the diagnostics say its
working. only prob is when i use the bootdisk on the laptop the dhcp times
out. any ideas on how to get the cd rom to work or the RIS thing to work are
greatly appreciated.

xPLaR wrote:
> i have a laptop with a floppy and en external usb cdrom. the cdrom
> isnt being recognized by the win xp setup. ive also tried some of
> the modded win 98 bootdisks with usb cd rom support but they all
> say there is no usb cd rom installed. the laptop came to me
> formatted otherwise i would have done the install from windows. i
> also have a win 2003 server that i have RIS setup on. ive never
> used it so im not sure what im doing but the diagnostics say its
> working. only prob is when i use the bootdisk on the laptop the
> dhcp times out. any ideas on how to get the cd rom to work or the
> RIS thing to work are greatly appreciated.

Have you tried the Windows XP Setup Floppies?

If so and that did not work..
Use one of your Windows 98 Boot Disks to create the partitions.. Make two.
One of them (first one - 2GB or less) - format FAT32, 'sys' it and copy the
Windows XP CD onto it.
The other - just create the partition - don't format it.

Boot from the small partition. Start the install of Windows XP from that
drive. Choose the other partition to install on. You have a dual boot
system - but you have Windows XP installed.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

"Shenan Stanley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> xPLaR wrote:
> > i have a laptop with a floppy and en external usb cdrom. the cdrom
> > isnt being recognized by the win xp setup. ive also tried some of
> > the modded win 98 bootdisks with usb cd rom support but they all
> > say there is no usb cd rom installed. the laptop came to me
> > formatted otherwise i would have done the install from windows. i
> > also have a win 2003 server that i have RIS setup on. ive never
> > used it so im not sure what im doing but the diagnostics say its
> > working. only prob is when i use the bootdisk on the laptop the
> > dhcp times out. any ideas on how to get the cd rom to work or the
> > RIS thing to work are greatly appreciated.
>
> Have you tried the Windows XP Setup Floppies?
>
> If so and that did not work..
> Use one of your Windows 98 Boot Disks to create the partitions.. Make
two.
> One of them (first one - 2GB or less) - format FAT32, 'sys' it and copy
the
> Windows XP CD onto it.
> The other - just create the partition - don't format it.
>
> Boot from the small partition. Start the install of Windows XP from that
> drive. Choose the other partition to install on. You have a dual boot
> system - but you have Windows XP installed.
>
> --
> Shenan Stanley
> MS-MVP

Building on your idea: The OP could create a single FAT32
partition that covers the whole disk, then copy his WinXP
CD onto it. He could then do this:
- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
- Run c:\i386\winnt to launch the setup process.
- Convert the partition to NTFS after completion of the installation
(if desired).
This would give him a single boot WinXP installation.

"xPLaR" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>i have a laptop with a floppy and en external usb cdrom. the cdrom isnt being
>recognized by the win xp setup. ive also tried some of the modded win 98
>bootdisks with usb cd rom support but they all say there is no usb cd rom
>installed. the laptop came to me formatted otherwise i would have done the
>install from windows. i also have a win 2003 server that i have RIS setup on.
>ive never used it so im not sure what im doing but the diagnostics say its
>working. only prob is when i use the bootdisk on the laptop the dhcp times
>out. any ideas on how to get the cd rom to work or the RIS thing to work are
>greatly appreciated.

Are your Windows 98 and Windows 2003 machines networked?

If so then you could insert the CD into the Windows 2003 machine and
copy the entire i386 folder to a new folder of the same name on the
Windows 98 machine.

Then you could run the setup.exe program from the i386 folder to
install XP.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca