Installing windows XP over a network

  • Thread starter Thread starter deanburns
  • Start date Start date
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deanburns

Hello everyone, This is a challenge to me. I have a laptop computer
that has no CD drive and no floppy drive. I had installed windows XP
onto it and now I have to erase it and reinstall it due to a couple of
virus issues which do not allow me to get to the desktop. It was time
for me to reformat it and do the install again anyway.I have the copy
of windows XP so I can reinstall it and I do have a network card to
connect it to another computer. The issue is, If I reformat the drive,
will I have networking capabilities? Or can I do a complete install
with just the CD on another computer? Remember I have no floppy or CD
rom drive. Any help would be appreciated..
 
What do you mean "I have the copy of windows XP"? Don't you have the
original CD?

Get an external CD drive. There is no way you are going to install without
one.

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
He 'had installed windows XP onto it'.
How did he do it before?
Did he mean to say 'had windows XP installed onto it?
 
Richard Urban said:
What do you mean "I have the copy of windows XP"? Don't you have the
original CD?

Get an external CD drive. There is no way you are going to install without
one.
Click to expand...

Er, not entirely true...

If his existing XP install is still working well
enough to see the network, he can copy the I386
folder from the CD over to his HD and do a
new install to a differently named directory.

You will NOT be able to reformat if you do this,
though - just have a "fresh" XP install - which may
be all that you really need.

Course, if you are having virus issues, you will
have to make sure that the copied directory isn't
going to be affected by it.

Have to copy other relevant stuff over as well - any
proprietary drivers for the laptop, and any needed
driver for the network card.

Once the new install is up and running and you
can connect to the network, RENAME (do NOT delete
just yet) the OLD XP install directory, and reboot.

If your new install continues to run OK (do some testing
here), DELETE the renamed directory containing the old
install. You may want to keep it for awhile though, in
case there's something you need in it (watch for virus
issues).
 
Your laptop must already have a working version of Windows
installed in order to run a network installation of Windows XP.

Installing Windows XP Professional over the Network
http://www.mcmcse.com/windows_xp/guides/additionalinstall.shtml

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Hello everyone, This is a challenge to me. I have a laptop computer
| that has no CD drive and no floppy drive. I had installed windows XP
| onto it and now I have to erase it and reinstall it due to a couple of
| virus issues which do not allow me to get to the desktop. It was time
| for me to reformat it and do the install again anyway.I have the copy
| of windows XP so I can reinstall it and I do have a network card to
| connect it to another computer. The issue is, If I reformat the drive,
| will I have networking capabilities? Or can I do a complete install
| with just the CD on another computer? Remember I have no floppy or CD
| rom drive. Any help would be appreciated..
 
He says he doesn't have a CD drive. His is a very confusing
post. How did he originally install Windows Xp on his laptop
w/o a CD drive?
 
He doesn't have a CD drive? He can't get to the desktop! How is he going to
install ANY program on the computer aside from the operating system?

Somthin ain't rite!

--

Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Hello everyone, This is a challenge to me. I have a laptop computer
that has no CD drive and no floppy drive. I had installed windows XP
onto it and now I have to erase it and reinstall it due to a couple of
virus issues which do not allow me to get to the desktop. It was time
for me to reformat it and do the install again anyway.I have the copy
of windows XP so I can reinstall it and I do have a network card to
connect it to another computer. The issue is, If I reformat the drive,
will I have networking capabilities? Or can I do a complete install
with just the CD on another computer? Remember I have no floppy or CD
rom drive. Any help would be appreciated..
Click to expand...

You need at least a floppy drive, possibly a USB floppy would work, You have
to be at a DOS prompt with DOS network drivers loaded. Navigate to a network
share with the XP install files and use the winnt.exe 16 bit install
program. If you can boot XP at all and navigate to the share then use
winnt32.exe the 32 bit install program.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/winnt32.mspx

If the NIC is PXE enabled and you have a RIS server then there is another
procedure that doesn't involve floppies. If you had this stuff you would
probably already know how to go about it so I'm assuming this isn't
available.

Kerry
 
Richard Urban said:
He doesn't have a CD drive? He can't get to the desktop! How is he going to
install ANY program on the computer aside from the operating system?

Somthin ain't rite!
Click to expand...

Re-read the post:

He may have a partially broken XP install currently.
How broken, we do not know.

But if he can still access network shares he can
do what I posted earlier - he can map a shared
CD drive to get the I386 directory. Copy the directory
TO the laptop FROM another machine on the network.

I guess we're lacking some info here - and NONE of
us has suggested safe mode to this guy -

How far do you get in the bootup process? What
EXACTLY do you see when it's done? Can you get
to Safe Mode?
 
Hello everyone, This is a challenge to me. I have a laptop computer
that has no CD drive and no floppy drive. I had installed windows XP
Click to expand...

You need at least a cdrom drive in a pc. Buy one.
 
You have some options:
1) bootable usb or other device
2) network boot
3) direct cable connection
4) put your laptop hdd to other PC.

I think that copy installation files to affected system is not a best
solution. Some viruses automaticaly damage any new file. If you have
USB you can use USB floppy to boot your laptop.

Mano007
 
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