Reinstalling With New HD

[mcp6453]

I'm getting ready to reinstall XP from scratch on a notebook computer with a new
hard drive. Rather than install from the CD, I want to copy the CD to the hard
drive (installed in a desktop computer at the moment) and then install from
there. What files are folders do I need to drag over? What executable or command
file do I run to start the installation?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I'm getting ready to reinstall XP from scratch on a notebook
computer with a new hard drive. Rather than install from the CD, I
want to copy the CD to the hard drive (installed in a desktop
computer at the moment) and then install from there. What files are
folders do I need to drag over? What executable or command file do
I run to start the installation?

Why do you want to waste the space and time to do that?
(Seriously.)

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I'm getting ready to reinstall XP from scratch on a notebook
computer with a new hard drive. Rather than install from the CD, I
want to copy the CD to the hard drive (installed in a desktop
computer at the moment) and then install from there. What files are
folders do I need to drag over? What executable or command file do
I run to start the installation?

Why do you want to waste the space and time to do that?
(Seriously.)

Ignoring that...

Simple instructions would be to format the drive to FAT32 and put a bootable
system on it (Windows 98 DOS works.) You can do this on another computer,
SYS command or something.

Create a directory (like "WinXP") on the FAT32 (now bootable) drive. Copy
the entire Windows XP CD to that directory.

Put the drive in the new system and find a way to boot to something to set
the partition with everything on it as the Active partition (so it knows
where to boot from.) You might be able to do this on the other system
before moving the drive back to its home - but I think that might fail.

Boot to the Windows 98 DOS and go into the "\WinXP\i386" directory. Run the
WINNT.EXE command.

Been a while - but that and a few Google searches should get you going...

 

[mcp6453]

It's coming back to me now.

The reason I may have to do this is that the CD-Drive in the notebook
computer may not be up to the task. If it is, I'll definitely use it,
but time is at a premium right now.

Thanks philo and Shenan for the help.

 

[Twayne]

It can be done.

First off the drive must be formatted as fat32
(it can
be converted to NTFS after the installation)

Copy the entire XP cd to the drive.

Now, boot the machine with a win9x floppy

and load smartdrv.exe

http://vetusware.com/download/SMARTDRV.EXE/?id=52

you need to have smartdrv.exe on the boot floppy

without it , the installation will take *many*
hours and
my possibly never complete

and once booted to the A: promt simply type and
enter smartdrv
(or load it from autoexec.bat)


Now navigate over to the i386 folder on your HD

and start the installation by simply typing and
entering winnt
(note: do not use "setup" that's for execution
from
within the GUI environment only)

Now XP should install normally...

and you can use Windows help for the simple
process of
converting the drive to NTFS (if so desired)

Hmm, didn't know the drive would have to be FAT;
learn something every day.
Good writeup.

Twayne