Reinstall win2K HD is ONLY bootable device???

[mike]

My win2K laptop has become bloated with junk and I want to reinstall it.
Problem is that the Hard drive is the ONLY bootable device.
I can access external CD/floppy/USB drive from within windows2K,
but I can't boot from any of them.
If I just try to install win2k from within 2k, it tells me to reboot
from the CD, which I can't do.
Is there a way to make this work?
Thanks, mike

 

[DL]

I assume your Laptop has no internal media drives?
That being the case are there any options in the bios to boot from external?

 

[mike]

I assume your Laptop has no internal media drives?
That being the case are there any options in the bios to boot from external?

Thanks for the input, but as I stated, it is not possible to boot from
any external devices I have. The HD is the only internal media.
There exists a proprietary bootable external PCMCIA CD drive for this
machine (Fujitsu B112), but I don't have that model drive.
Nor do I have the port extender. I have PCMCIA and USB, that's all.
If I install the recovery console, can I reinstall from there? I guess
there's still the issue of drivers for the CD drive???

As I recall, the last time I did this, I had to disassemble the laptop
to remove the drive, installed dos, booted dos, installed win98
upgraded win98 to win2k, then tried to clean off all the win98 stuff.
Was a major PITA. I'd like a more direct approach.
mike

 

[DL]

I seem to recollect seeing a post, in reponse to a similar Q, with a method
to install by copying the wincd (some or all) to the hd, not sure if this
also required a floppy. (I'm assuming you can currently access cd from win)
Perhaps goggle if no one responds

I assume your Laptop has no internal media drives?
That being the case are there any options in the bios to boot from

external?

Thanks for the input, but as I stated, it is not possible to boot from
any external devices I have. The HD is the only internal media.
There exists a proprietary bootable external PCMCIA CD drive for this
machine (Fujitsu B112), but I don't have that model drive.
Nor do I have the port extender. I have PCMCIA and USB, that's all.
If I install the recovery console, can I reinstall from there? I guess
there's still the issue of drivers for the CD drive???

As I recall, the last time I did this, I had to disassemble the laptop
to remove the drive, installed dos, booted dos, installed win98
upgraded win98 to win2k, then tried to clean off all the win98 stuff.
Was a major PITA. I'd like a more direct approach.
mike

 

[mike]

I seem to recollect seeing a post, in reponse to a similar Q, with a method
to install by copying the wincd (some or all) to the hd, not sure if this
also required a floppy.

That works with 98, but not 2k outathebox. Insists on rebooting from
the CD. Probably a way around that, but I don't know what it is.
(I'm assuming you can currently access cd from win)
'cause that's what I stated.

Perhaps goggle if no one responds

been there, done that.
mike

 

[Andy]

Thanks for the input, but as I stated, it is not possible to boot from
any external devices I have. The HD is the only internal media.
There exists a proprietary bootable external PCMCIA CD drive for this
machine (Fujitsu B112), but I don't have that model drive.
Nor do I have the port extender. I have PCMCIA and USB, that's all.
If I install the recovery console, can I reinstall from there? I guess
there's still the issue of drivers for the CD drive???

As I recall, the last time I did this, I had to disassemble the laptop
to remove the drive, installed dos, booted dos, installed win98
upgraded win98 to win2k, then tried to clean off all the win98 stuff.
Was a major PITA. I'd like a more direct approach.

A similar but better way to install Windows 2000 is to execute
winnt.exe from the i386 directory while running DOS.
1. Install the laptop drive in a desktop computer.
2. Boot from Windows 98 diskette.
3. Run fdisk and create a 500 MB primary partition.
4. Format /s the primary partition to install Windows 98 DOS.
5. Copy i386 folder from Windows 2000 CD to primary partition.
6. Verify that computer can boot DOS from laptop drive, and smartdrv
is installed.
7. Reinstall drive back into laptop.
8. Boot laptop to DOS.
9. Change directory into i386 and run winnt.exe.
10. In Windows 2000 setup, create partition for Windows 2000 with the
rest of the disk, and install Windows there.

When installation is complete, dual booting will exist. Do not delete
the files in the primary partition, so that Windows 2000 can be
reinstalled again if necessary by booting DOS.

mike

 

[mike]

A similar but better way to install Windows 2000 is to execute
winnt.exe from the i386 directory while running DOS.
1. Install the laptop drive in a desktop computer.
2. Boot from Windows 98 diskette.
3. Run fdisk and create a 500 MB primary partition.
4. Format /s the primary partition to install Windows 98 DOS.
5. Copy i386 folder from Windows 2000 CD to primary partition.
6. Verify that computer can boot DOS from laptop drive, and smartdrv
is installed.
7. Reinstall drive back into laptop.
8. Boot laptop to DOS.
9. Change directory into i386 and run winnt.exe.
10. In Windows 2000 setup, create partition for Windows 2000 with the
rest of the disk, and install Windows there.

When installation is complete, dual booting will exist. Do not delete
the files in the primary partition, so that Windows 2000 can be
reinstalled again if necessary by booting DOS.

Here's what I ended up doing. Don't need dual boot or disk removal.

On the desktop, make a dos bootable hard disk.
Copy the contents of i386 to that drive.
Copy all the needed laptop drivers.
Image the dos drive to an external usb drive.
I used Acronis.
Restore the image to the target laptop.
Reboot to dos and install in place on the laptop.
Works great.
Thanks, mike

 

[philo]

NOTE:

I have done that and confirm that it works...
!however! it's best to also have smartdrv on the drive and load if first..

either from within autoexec.bat
or simply running it from the command line before starting the installtion