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

[Shenan Stanley]

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.

Dollar short, Day late...

 

[cact25]

Way to go Klaus. Somebody finally came up with an answer besides myself.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Way to go Klaus. Somebody finally came up with an answer besides
myself.

Answer was given over 36 hours ago - with link to a 2+ year old web page
that laid out the steps - which was found by a google search (also given) in
the same response. ;-)

 

[cact25]

In a single HD PC, the First Partition will always be C. If you have
preloaded the HD with the Setup CD contents, you do not need any DOS
partition if you can boot from anything, floppy, CD, USB stick, etc.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In a single HD PC, the First Partition will always be C.

Usually, but not "always." On mine, for example, my first partition is
F:. I have no C: partition.

 

[John John - MVP]

Looks to me like you are doing some whining of your own. XP Guy's
question was answered but his attitude was to come back and insult
everyone who replied to him, if he expected to get more help with that
kind of attitude he misjudged. People have been installing NT operating
systems from flat folders for eons, this is nothing new. This group is
followed by many who know how to do a flat installation and they could
have helped XP Guy further but because of the insults in his first reply
most of the folks decided to ignore him.

John

 

[XP Guy]

XP Guy's question was answered

And not definately by anything posted by anyone else.

I posted the question on Wed. 11 pm.

It was on Friday (9 am) that Shenan Stanley posted a response that
included this link:

-----------------
http://www.overclock.net/faqs/101421-how-install-windows-xp-hard-drive.html
----------------

The relevant piece of information being on line 11:

------------------
11. Then in the c:\> prompt, type c:\I386\winnt.exe
-----------------

As far as I can tell, nobody in this thread had explicitely posted that
very simply instruction that setup can be launched from DOS by running
winnt.exe.

In my first post that started this thread, I even mentioned that
installation from winnt.exe was likely possible:

----------------
Some other comments I've come across is that possibly the install
can be started from DOS by running winnt.exe with the appropriate
command-line switches.
---------------

but his attitude was to come back and insult everyone who replied
to him,

Everyone? Hyperbolic statements like that usually don't help to build
or maintain credibility.

if he expected to get more help with that kind of attitude he
misjudged.

Only in your stuck-up mind.

Now, here's the best part.

Warning: load of horse shit about to be deposited:

This group is followed by many who know how to do a flat
installation and they could have helped XP Guy further but
because of the insults in his first reply most of the folks
decided to ignore him.

If indeed any of these so-called experts did read my first post, they
could have easily confirmed what I had written by saying "yes, running
winnt.exe from the i386 folder will start the XP install process".

Your explanation as to why such an answer was never posted can't be
proved. But I'm sure you feel sufficiently self important and
authoritative by giving it.

 

[XP Guy]

After weeding thru all of the crap and whining instead of
answereing the question, I will answer it.

Ok, great. I'm waiting. What is your answer?

I don't remember the exact procedure, but I know that it was
in the \i386 folder if I remember correctly.

sigh...

Yet another fool.

 

[XP Guy]

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

More foolishness from the fool.

Go back and re-read the original, first post in this thread.

 

[Marianne]

,,,

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.

Lol. Sheesh indeed! You sure sing a different song when it comes to your
registry cleaners! There is no one that you haven't insulted and there is
no insult that you haven't thrown at anyone who disagrees with your opinion
about your favorite snake oil! You're the last person around here who
should be lecturing others on manners!

XP Guy's comment was ignorant, anyone who knows the least bit
about NTFS would never claim that its benefits are imaginary. You might
think that FAT32 is better than NTFS but that doesn't mean that NTFS
benefits are imaginary.

XP Guy and 98 Guy are one and the same. He hasn't changed his posting
habits when he's in the XP groups. Big Al gave him a very polite answer and
offered a well meaning response and in his usual manner 98 Guy/XP Guy
decided to thank Big Al by insulting him, what a jerk! Then he proceeded to
insult just about everybody else who posted, a real class act! Then as his
final show of ignorance he decided to have a kick a Microsoft by telling us
what he thinks he knows about NTFS. 98 Guy is well known in the Win98
group, go over there and follow the group and you will see what he's all
about. He's a TROLL, just like YOU!

M

 

[Marianne]

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:

<snip... links to cquirke.blogspot.com>>

Chris Quirke doesn't say that the benefits of NTFS are imaginary, to the
contrary he says that NTFS is superior to FAT32. What he has never liked
about NTFS is that it is a proprietary file system that is not well
documented like FAT32 and he thinks that it lacks support tools. He says:

"NTFS is a better file system, but the available maintenance tools and
options suck."

Clearly he doesn't share your views that FAT32 is better and he certainly
doesn't think that NTFS benefits are imaginary!

M

 

[Stefan Kanthak]

I thought that NT systems could only be installed to FAT volumes.

No, thats simply wrong.
Windows NT3.5 and later install to NTFS without any problems.

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?

This was how NT3.x/NT4 did the job, their SETUP was not able to format
NTFS (although able to write to a previously formatted NTFS file system).
Starting with Windows 2000 the SETUP can format NTFS, and even prepare a
partition to be used in another computer with no CD-drive at all to
complete the installation there. Go figure!

AND: converting FAT* to NTFS has some major drawbacks: the cluster size
will be set to ONE sector (XP and later do better IFF the FAT32 clusters
are aligned) and the filesystem performs really bad, and ACLs aint set
properly.

Stefan

[ overlong sicknature removed, fup2 appropriate group ]

 

[Twayne]

lol, normally I won't reply to crap like this, but this one's
entertaining enough to do so.

Lol. Sheesh indeed! You sure sing a different song when it comes to
your registry cleaners! There is no one that you haven't insulted
and there is no insult that you haven't thrown at anyone who
disagrees with your opinion about your favorite snake oil! You're
the last person around here who should be lecturing others on manners!

Since you're so anxious to see another registry cleaner thread, let me
say that you can not read and lack any reading comprehension abilities
because I've never said anything even similar to what you're intimating.
I disagree with MISINFORMATION! Those who spout the boilerplate that all
such are ... and so forth deserve to be caught in the collaterals. Like
you with the ignorance you're displaying here. You're apparently a
fanatic looking for a fight but you wont' get one from me. I've also
noticed by the way that you are a poser.

XP Guy's comment was ignorant, anyone who knows the least bit
about NTFS would never claim that its benefits are imaginary. You
might think that FAT32 is better than NTFS but that doesn't mean that
NTFS benefits are imaginary.

Well, again, you have to learn to read. I never said that. You're
mixed up as usual. I am only curious about why FAT would be a benefit
over NTFS in one's mind and never said anything at all that it was. Nor
did I say FAT was.

XP Guy and 98 Guy are one and the same. He hasn't changed his posting
habits when he's in the XP groups. Big Al gave him a very polite
answer and offered a well meaning response and in his usual manner 98
Guy/XP Guy decided to thank Big Al by insulting him, what a jerk!

Takes one to know one, doesn't it?

Then he proceeded to insult just about everybody else who posted, a
real class act! Then as his final show of ignorance he decided to
have a kick a Microsoft by telling us what he thinks he knows about
NTFS. 98 Guy is well known in the Win98 group, go over there and
follow the group and you will see what he's all about. He's a TROLL,
just like YOU!

Me? Now, who put out the troll bait here? Hmmm?

lol, yer funny!

 

[Twayne]

Right. I was thinking about a CD I guess.


Dunno; nor does it really matter when it comes to MS and how they name
things. I have one there too that I think it was malawerbytes of
something lke that kep wanting to call a rogue program. It found one
in another folder too that turned out to be for my CADD program.
Since nothing else identified them as "bad" I expanded the files from
the CD and compared their hashes; exactly the same for windows, and
the CADD I already knew about. Usually they're smaller files anyway
and all they do is start the main file.

I did take a look at the links because I come from FAT days and even
CP/M days before that. I'll be honest, although I give you credit for
providing the links, those pages are pretty lean on detail where facts
are concerned. As far as I'm concerned NTFS is much better, just as
stable, DIFFERENT, which I think is that author's problem, and has
very useful features FAT doesn't have. Wikipedia probably has some of
the best writeups in layman's terms for NTFS and FAT volumes if you'd
like to read some on them. There are links all over the 'net of
course.

I'm not going to try to change your mind; if FAT is what you want,
there is actually nothing "wrong" with it. It'll work fine; if you
want any of the NTFS features you'll need 3rd party stuff that's all.
There are even apps to let it read NTFS if they're necessary. Each
to his own, I say. I just don't find the arguement very pursuasive,
but still, you did answer what I asked, so - thanks for that.

--
Cheers,

Twayne

...

 

[XP Guy]

How did your test posts to alt.test go yesterday?

Everything work out ok Marianne?

 

[cact25]

All you need to copy is the i386 folder. Navigate to it and run winnt.exe
and it will begin the install and ask for the CD. If you copy the entire CD,
following the above might still work.

Jim

 

[cact25]

I stand corrected. I assumed you had a CD drive. I would create a tiny DOS
partition, unless you have a floppy drive. If the DOS partition is bootable
you can use the winnt.exe route.

Jim