Install Windows XP with no CD-ROM?

[Michael Jennings]

A customer wants me to re-install Windows XP on a Sony laptop that does not
have a CD-ROM drive. Is there a way to do that?

Windows XP is installed on the laptop, but it won't boot. Running FixBoot and
FixMBR in Recovery Console did not help.

I was able to copy all the Windows XP SP1 files from the CD to a FAT partition
on the laptop.

If I boot from the Windows XP diskettes (6 of them!), at the end I get only an
error message saying I don't have CD-ROM drive, even though all of the Win XP
CD is installed on the hard drive.

Setup.exe won't run from DOS, it says.

I can run \i386\WinNT.exe from the CD-ROM copy. However, it seems not to
recognize that it should be installing into the drive letter I want repaired.

 

[Alex Nichol]

A customer wants me to re-install Windows XP on a Sony laptop that does not
have a CD-ROM drive. Is there a way to do that?

Windows XP is installed on the laptop, but it won't boot. Running FixBoot and
FixMBR in Recovery Console did not help.

I was able to copy all the Windows XP SP1 files from the CD to a FAT partition
on the laptop.

If I boot from the Windows XP diskettes (6 of them!), at the end I get only an
error message saying I don't have CD-ROM drive, even though all of the Win XP
CD is installed on the hard drive.

Setup.exe won't run from DOS, it says.

I can run \i386\WinNT.exe from the CD-ROM copy. However, it seems not to
recognize that it should be installing into the drive letter I want repaired.

You would need to be sure that the partition concerned is the active one
- and I *think* in that case it will have to be a FAT 32 one, not NTFS,
because you are running initially from DOS which does not recognise NTFS
You can convert such a FAT partition subsequently, but see
www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm

 

[Michael P Gabriel]

You would need to be sure that the partition concerned is the active one
- and I *think* in that case it will have to be a FAT 32 one, not NTFS,
because you are running initially from DOS which does not recognise NTFS
You can convert such a FAT partition subsequently, but see
www.aumha.org/win5/a/ntfscvt.htm