Can you install XP without booting from CD?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry
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T

Terry

A friend of mine was using 2000. She is planing to get XP. Can you
format an existing drive and install XP without using the boot from CD
option?
 
Terry said:
A friend of mine was using 2000. She is planing to get XP. Can you
format an existing drive and install XP without using the boot from CD
option?
Click to expand...

No. AFAIK.....
 
Yes you can. From within W2K you can pop the CD in and run setup.exe from
there. But why would you unless you cannot boot from the CD?
 
Incorrect. One can boot from a 3.5 in bootable floppy [such as the one one
can create with Windows 98] and run winnt.exe from the i386 folder on the
Windows XP CD, which starts the XP installation routine. 'Best to put
smartdrv.exe onto the boot floppy and run it before launching winnt.exe. If
one does not, the installation can take many many hours. smartdrv.exe can be
had out of any Windows 98 WINDOWS folder. Look up smartdrv on the 'Net.
 
Yes. One can boot from a 3.5 in bootable floppy [such as the one one can
create with Windows 98] and run winnt.exe from the i386 folder on the
Windows XP CD, which starts the XP installation routine. 'Best to put
smartdrv.exe onto the boot floppy beforehand. When after booting from the
boot floppy run smartdrv.exe before launching winnt.exe. If one does not,
the installation can take many many hours. smartdrv.exe can be had out of
any Windows 98 WINDOWS folder. Look up smartdrv on the 'Net.

At the boot floppy's DOS prompt:

first type:

smartdrv.exe
hit Enter

then switch to the CD-ROM's drive letter, typically E:\ with a Win98 boot
floppy and type:

i386\winnt.exe
hit Enter

If the routine asks where, tell it the i386 folder on the CD-ROM.
 
Gospel said:
Incorrect. One can boot from a 3.5 in bootable floppy [such as the one one
can create with Windows 98] and run winnt.exe from the i386 folder on the
Windows XP CD, which starts the XP installation routine. 'Best to put
smartdrv.exe onto the boot floppy and run it before launching winnt.exe.
If one does not, the installation can take many many hours. smartdrv.exe
can be had out of any Windows 98 WINDOWS folder. Look up smartdrv on the
'Net.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But if the machine's BIOS is so old as to not have a "boot from CD"
option then I would be very wary as to whether the machine is capable of
running XP in the first place......
 
Gordon said:
Gospel said:
Gordon said:
Terry wrote:

A friend of mine was using 2000. She is planing to get XP. Can you
format an existing drive and install XP without using the boot from
CD option?

No. AFAIK.....
Click to expand...

Incorrect. One can boot from a 3.5 in bootable floppy [such as the one one
can create with Windows 98] and run winnt.exe from the i386 folder on the
Windows XP CD, which starts the XP installation routine. 'Best to put
smartdrv.exe onto the boot floppy and run it before launching winnt.exe.
If one does not, the installation can take many many hours. smartdrv.exe
can be had out of any Windows 98 WINDOWS folder. Look up smartdrv on the
'Net.
Click to expand...

Maybe. But if the machine's BIOS is so old as to not have a "boot from CD"
option then I would be very wary as to whether the machine is capable of
running XP in the first place......
Click to expand...

You really can run XP on a 233 Pentium 1 with 64 meg of RAM. I've seen
it done, wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be. (setting
high performance settings within XP helps)
 
In
Terry said:
A friend of mine was using 2000. She is planing to get XP. Can you
format an existing drive and install XP without using the boot from CD
option?
Click to expand...

Detailed step by step in the article linked below, but if the system does
not have boot from CD as an option, it might be best to stay with XP.
How to clean install XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
In
Michael Stevens said:
In

Detailed step by step in the article linked below, but if the system
does not have boot from CD as an option, it might be best to stay
with XP. How to clean install XP.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html
Click to expand...

Correction, I meant to say stay with 2000.
--
Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP
(e-mail address removed)
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/outlookexpressnewreader.htm
 
It's pre-mature to recommend that, you'd need to hear the system specs. XP
boots faster than 2000, even on old systems. Turn off 'theming' and use the
"Classic" setting and you might easily have a better system all 'round. Yes,
XP would probably choke on a Pentium 233 with 64MB RAM, but on a Pentium II
350 with 256MB RAM and with good quality mobo and other components it might
be OK. And with WinXP SP2 there are real reasons to switch to XP beyond the
cosmetic.
 
Gospel said:
Yes, XP would probably choke on a Pentium
233 with 64MB RAM,
Click to expand...


No "probably" about it. It would be so slow as to be virtually unusable.

but on a Pentium II 350 with 256MB RAM and with
good quality mobo and other components it might be OK.
Click to expand...


My wife ran Windows XP with almost that exact configration (a PII-400 with
256MB) for several years. It ran, but slowly. Her needs were very slight
(E-mail, some light word processing), so it was adequate for her, but anyone
doing anything much more demanding might find it too slow.
 
Agreed, and millions of people use their computers to get to a favourite
website or two, email and some word processing .. and that's it.
 
Gospel wrote:

Agreed, and millions of people use their computers to get to a favourite
website or two, email and some word processing .. and that's it.
Click to expand...

And, unfortunately, THEY are exactly the kind of people who say "AV Prog?
What AV Prog?" and "Firewall? What firewall?" and thus make huge
contributions to the networks of zombie machines spewing out spam and
spyware!
 
Gospel said:
Agreed, and millions of people use their computers to get to a
favourite website or two, email and some word processing .. and
that's it.
Click to expand...


Exactly. I know several people like that. Older machines like this are fine
for them.
 
Exactly! That's why XP SP2 is a good idea (within reason), even if it may
not be the speediest on an older machine. The Windows Firewall etc. makes
for lower zombie activity on the Internet.
 
Boot from a Windows 98 startup disk, select enable CD-Rom support, navigate to the CD-ROM drive folder i386, and run winnnt.exe. This will work if your file system is FAT or FAT32.
 
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