Is it possible to install XP if the XP-CD is pre-copied to a blank harddrive?

[Tim Meddick]

XP Guy,
It was called WINNT.EXE to differentiate it from setup.exe on
all the previous DOS Windows versions because they [Microsoft] were so proud
of their new NT system and didn't want anybody to get confused over which
they were using (I guess).
Did you even look at my post in amongst all the 'angst' I'm sure I was
the first with a definitive answer that really tried to answer the question
you asked. (Namely, that is was very possible)

 

[John John - MVP]

As I prefer to install XP directly to a FAT32 volume (not NTFS) there is
no other preparation needed.

Sheesh! You could have just booted with the Windows XP CD and formated
it to FAT32 with the Setup utility, what a complete waste of time just
to install XP to a FAT32 drive!

Those that seek the imaginary benefits of NTFS

Only someone who understand absolutely nothing about NTFS would ever say
such an ignorant thing!

would first need to prepare the hard drive such that the desired
NTFS volume exists and is positioned appropriated to be your C drive and
the startable FAT32 installation volume later presumably becomes the D
drive as the XP installation proceeds.

No, DOS can't install to an NTFS drive from a flat folder installation
because DOS cannot see or write to an NTFS drive.

John

 

[Tim Meddick]

John,
I thought that NT systems could only be installed to FAT volumes.
If you select format it NTFS it actually formats it FAT and then converts it
to NTFS later in the setup process. Is tis not true?

 

[Tim Meddick]

XP Guy,
Please, tell me you read my original post saying how it was
possible (as I have done it before) and giving you the straight answer that
(I thought) you deserved?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

John,
I thought that NT systems could only be installed to FAT volumes.
If you select format it NTFS it actually formats it FAT and then converts it
to NTFS later in the setup process. Is tis not true?

As far as I know, what you say isn't true, but I don't pretend to be
an expert on this. If you're right, I'd like to see confirmation of it
from others.

 

[John John - MVP]

I know that it's not the case for Windows 2000 Professional so I doubt
that it would be any different for Windows XP.

I had heard about this quirk a few times but had never seen any real
information on this, then sometime ago I was reading up on Server 2003
and I found the detail mentioned on a web site:

"Unlike its predecessors, if you elect to format the operating system
volume using NTFS, (Server 2003) Setup actually formats it using NTFS
rather than starting with FAT/FAT32 then converting later on. The system
restarts after this phase."

http://codeidol.com/windows/inside-...tional-Overview-of-Windows-Server-2003-Setup/
( http://tinyurl.com/claw53 )

This intrigued me, I didn't think that anything post NT4 would work this
way. I had no Server 2000 version to verify this but I did a test with
Windows 2000 Professional, during the setup I deleted the partitions on
the disk and created a new one and selected to format it NTFS. I then
let the setup program finish the text mode part of the setup and when
the computer started to reboot I powered it off and removed the disk
from the computer and mounted it to another Windows 2000 installation
and inspected it, my findings were contrary to what was stated by the
folks at codeidol, the disk was formated to NTFS during the text mode
part of the setup.

Now, if you read the information on the codeidol page it looks like
these guys know what they are talking about, one can kind of tell that
the information there wasn't written by a bunch of clueless dipsticks!
So I'm not sure if this only applies to Server versions or if the folks
at codeidol meant to say that the conversion happened during the text
mode portion of the setup, in my test the Windows 2000 drive was
formated to the NTFS file system after the text mode portion of the
setup, before the first reboot. I have looked for information or
confirmation about this on the Microsoft site as well as others and I
haven't been able to find any further information so I'm not too sure
what to make of this. Perhaps this conversion happens during the text
mode part of the setup, I don't know. I may try this test again and
power off the machine immediately after the formating finishes and see
what the disk looks like at that early stage of the setup process.

John

 

[Klaus Jorgensen]

XP Guy wrote :

Why did you do all that?

That really doesn't duplicate the setup in my original question.

I know, but testing this in a virtual environment gives me a clue if it
works in a true environment. In this setup, a virtual pc is as close to
a real setup as any other hardware platform. It does not guarantee it
works, but given the differences between hardware platforms, you
wouldn't have any guarantee it could work on your hardware if I did a
successful test on my hardware.

And it wasn't a "do all that" thing - I was watching "Open Range" on tv
while the setup did all it's work, me doing the manual part during
commercials (picking up another beer at the same time).

May I ask what kind of equipment you are targeting with a setup like
this - some sort of embedded device or what?

 

[Tim Meddick]

It sounds like he's doing it on a system with no cd-rom access (copying the
xp setup files on to hd on a different system)?

 

[Klaus Jorgensen]

Tim Meddick submitted this idea :

It sounds like he's doing it on a system with no cd-rom access (copying the
xp setup files on to hd on a different system)?

To me "not have any ability to boot from any external device" also
means no USB ports, and what kind of system does not have USB ports?
That's why I mentioned if it mabye at least featured a network port
that could load the setup files from a RIS server. Btw, using a RIS
server you can load the setup files directly by booting from network -
the BIOS downloads setup files using the simple TFTP protocol from a
2003 server.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Klaus,
But maybe limited knowledge is a factor. I know, myself, that I
would not be confident in setting up a network install from DOS although I
have done it once in a training environment. Someone might even be too
cautious to ask for help when it comes to accessing cd / USB devices from
DOS. They may rather ask about a question that they KNOW will solve their
problem. Altogether, I think that his insistence, that his original
question be answered and his not wanting to volunteer any answers to
questions like these, proves it.

 

[XP Guy]

May I ask what kind of equipment you are targeting with a setup
like this - some sort of embedded device or what?

HP 2133 Mini-Note PC

I believe that product is on the verge of being (or already has been)
discontinued. Availability seems very limited at this point. It was
introduced by HP about exactly a year ago.

I recently purchsed 2 of them for about $220 each (the last two
available from that vendor).

The 2133 came in 2 basic configurations:

a) 512 mb ram, 4gb solid-state drive, 1.0 Ghz Via C7 CPU, Suse linux
b) 1 gb ram (or 2?), 160 gb hard drive, 1.6 Ghz Via C7 CPU, Vista

XP was never offered, but XP drivers are available for it.

I purchased the (a) version, and intend to bring the ram up to 1 gb and
replace the existing SSD drive with a conventional hard drive.

The 2133 is unique in that for an 8.9" display it's resolution is 1280 x
768 (most netbooks have 1000 x 600 resolution). All aluminum chasis
too.

 

[XP Guy]

Yes (see previous post)

Yes (by slaving the drive to a win-98 system).

To me "not have any ability to boot from any external device"
also means no USB ports, and what kind of system does not have
USB ports?

While the target device does have USB ports, it's not worth my time to
figure out how to get the device to boot from a USB stick (if indeed
that option is available in the device's bios). I do not yet have my
hands on the target device (that will happen next week).

And because the target device does not have a hard drive, I figured the
most ergonomic course of action would be to pre-load the drive with a
copy of the XP cd prior to installing the drive into the device.

 

[Klaus Jorgensen]

XP Guy explained on 25-04-2009 :

While the target device does have USB ports, it's not worth my time to
figure out how to get the device to boot from a USB stick (if indeed
that option is available in the device's bios). I do not yet have my
hands on the target device (that will happen next week).

A couple of weeks ago I managed to do an XP installation from a USB
stick. A SanDisk Cruzer with U3 support can be modified to have an XP
ISO image copied onto its CD partition - unfortunately this partition
is recognized as a USB CDROM boot device only in fairly new systems
like Lenovo T500 or M58.

Fortunately my employer doesn't mind if I spend some time digging into
stuff like this. (c:

 

[Twayne]

XP Guy,
It was called WINNT.EXE to differentiate it from setup.exe
on all the previous DOS Windows versions because they [Microsoft]
were so proud of their new NT system and didn't want anybody to get
confused over which they were using (I guess).
Did you even look at my post in amongst all the 'angst' I'm sure I
was the first with a definitive answer that really tried to answer
the question you asked. (Namely, that is was very possible)

Good grief, is it really so important to you that you get credit for
being the first to offer something? IIRC he responded to you in one of
his collective responses. Did you just guess at being the first, or did
you reassemble the thread to see if you were? Then you wouldn't have to
be guessing and could pitch your ego a little stronger. Who cares who
was first? It got sorted, which is the important thing.
Twayne

 

[Twayne]

Sheesh! You could have just booted with the Windows XP CD and
formated it to FAT32 with the Setup utility, what a complete waste of
time just to install XP to a FAT32 drive!


Only someone who understand absolutely nothing about NTFS would ever
say such an ignorant thing!

,,,

Sheesh is right. There you go, jumping right into name calling because
someone disagrees with your opinion. You didn't even bother to ask why
he thought that way. There could be a valid reason it wasn't necessary
to give here. He seems to be inexperienced in some things, but ...
maybe not.

 

[Twayne]

Hi,

Thanks for coming back with the verification/clarifications. Always
nice to see the results and I'm glad to see it's sorted out. If you
have any energy for this thread left, now that it is sorted out, I do
have a couple comments/questions inline:

I have performed the following steps today on a real PC (and not in a
virtual environment) so this concludes this thread as far as I can
tell.

IMO VMs are a good indicator of whether something won't work. Sort of
like a pregnancy test in reverse - if it say no, it might still be yes.
Once automated it's pretty simple to run.

....

D) it is possible to start and successfully complete the XP-sp3
installation process simply by running the file "winnt.exe" from the
/i386 directory of the CD image as copied to the hard drive. The XP
cd need not be present in the CD drive during the installation. No
other command line arguments are necessary.

I thought there would be in "install.bat" file; no? It probably only
did the same thing anyway.

As I prefer to install XP directly to a FAT32 volume (not NTFS) there
is no other preparation needed. Those that seek the imaginary
benefits of NTFS would first need to prepare the hard drive such that

I am really curious why you think NTFS benefits are "imaginary"? Is
this something particular to your setup or are you saying there is no
benefit to NTFS regardless, ever? Or is it an experience thing? What?

the desired NTFS volume exists and is positioned appropriated to be
your C drive and the startable FAT32 installation volume later
presumably becomes the D drive as the XP installation proceeds.
After the installation is complete, the secondary FAT32 volume can be
deleted and it's space can become incorporated into the primary NTFS
partition, or the FAT32 volume can remain and act as a "recovery
disk" should re-installation be required later.
....

Anyone that wants to run XP on a device that does not have any
external boot capability (but who can remove the device's internal
hard drive and slave it to another machine to perform steps A and B
above) may want to follow these steps in order to effect the
installation of XP onto the target device.

I guess I can see that: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you mean there is
no CD/DVD drive, no USB ports or the BIOS won't allow booting from them,
same for thumb drives, etc.? I saw your machine descrip elsewhere and
it's hard to imagine a machine from a year ago wouldn't have some sort
of external boot capability.

Just for grins, I did a quickie lookup at HP for the specs and there was
a paragraph that led me to think you could boot to a USB or ?Bluetooth?
device.
--------------------------
Wireless support: Broadcom 802.11a/b/g, b/g, optional Bluetooth 2.0, HP
Wireless Assistant
Communications Broadcom Ethernet Integrated Controller (10/100/1000)

Expansion slots: (1) ExpressCard/54 slot, Secure Digital (SD) slot

Ports and connectors: (2) USB 2.0 ports, VGA, power connector,
RJ-45/Ethernet, stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in,
optional VGA webcam

Input device: 92% full-sized keyboard, touchpad with scroll zone
Software: HP Backup and Recovery Manager, Roxio Creator 9, Microsoft
Office Ready 20078
------------------------

Thanks; I'm quite curious about the non-boot and NTFS questions.

Regards,

Twayne
--

 

[John John - MVP]

,,,

Sheesh is right. There you go, jumping right into name calling because
someone disagrees with your opinion. You didn't even bother to ask why
he thought that way. There could be a valid reason it wasn't necessary
to give here. He seems to be inexperienced in some things, but ...
maybe not.

If you think that the NTFS benefits are imaginary then you belong to the
same club as XP Guy (aka 98 Guy).

John

 

[XP Guy]

I thought there would be in "install.bat" file; no? It probably
only did the same thing anyway.

If I recall correctly, there are relatively few unpacked executable
files in the i386 directory, and no .bat files.

As for the comment (by someone else) that MS called the file "winnt.exe"
to differentiate it from other previous versions of windows, that
doesn't explain why the "real" setup file (in the root directory of the
CD) was named "setup.exe".

I am really curious why you think NTFS benefits are "imaginary"?

If we're going to have a conversation about the pro's and con's of NTFS
vs FAT32, then I stongly suggest you read the following first:

http://cquirke.blogspot.com/2006/01/bad-file-system-or-incompetent-os.html

http://cquirke.blogspot.com/2008/03/ntfs-vs-fatxx-data-recovery.html

http://cquirke.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-bad-sector-often-kills-you.html

http://cquirke.mvps.org/ntfs.htm

I really haven't come across any other detailed or critical analysis of
NTFS anywhere else on the net. What I usually find is very superficial
comments that NTFS is obviously better than FAT32, without any real
understanding of what NTFS is "under the hood".

Once you've had a look at the above material, come back and let me know.

I guess I can see that: Correct me if I'm wrong, but you mean there
is no CD/DVD drive, no USB ports or the BIOS won't allow booting
from them, same for thumb drives, etc.?

If the target device has no CD drive, and it doesn't allow for booting
from a USB port, then besides putting files directly on the device's
hard drive I don't know how else you'd be able to install the OS of
choice on it. And since I'm putting the drive into the netbook anyways,
why not pre-load it with what I need?

I saw your machine descrip elsewhere and it's hard to imagine
a machine from a year ago wouldn't have some sort of external
boot capability.

Well, depending on the model, it does come with either a 160 gb hard
drive (with Vista already installed on it) or a 4 gb solid-state flash
drive (with Linux already installed on it) so it's not like it's not
usable "out of the box". And like I said, since I'm getting the version
with the 4 gb SSD that I'm going to replace with a real hard drive, then
why not pre-load the hard drive with the software first?

 

[cact25]

After weeding thru all of the crap and whining instead of answereing the
question, I will answer it. According to tech support at MICROSOFT, that is
what I was told to do when I could not get XP to install on a newly built PC.
I don't remember the exact procedure, but I know that it was in the \i386
folder if I remember correctly. I could not get it to work due to the CD
being bad. They sent me a new CD subsequently. That CD worked. It would be
easier to do if you could use another PC to do the copying. Then put the HD
in the new PC, if that is what you are doing. You can then use any CD that
will boot to get you to the DOS prompt A:\. I hope this helps.

 

[cact25]

I forgot to mention that you would be better off if you format the drive as
NTFS.