problems with XP installation - usb drive & active partition

[Gabriel]

hello all,

I have an EVO D510 Slimline with a usb based cdrom drive and no floppy disk.
My BIOS does not detect the usb cdrom so I've had difficulty deploying
Windows XP.
Eventually I found some convoluted USB drivers that made the cdom detectable
but inhibited the operation of my usb based keyboard.
I then managed to boot off a network boot disk on a usb drive and connect to
a Windows XP Professional installation share.
After in run winnt.exe /thard disk) setup copies the files incorrectly to
the usb drive and copies the temp installation files to my disk drive. The
reason is I think, because when I boot off the usb based network boot disk,
this disk is assigned as the active partition. XP appears to install on the
active partition (the usb drive) and then when I reboot the installation
fails to continue. An error appears...something to the tune of "Invalid boot
partition". If I take the usb drive out and try boot off the hard disk there
is still an invalid boot partition.
I could'nt find any switches on winnt.exe to force it to install on a
specific partition. I would imagine this option occurs further down in the
installation process, but as I say the installation does not initially give
me the option.
When I ran fdisk off the usb boot disk, the tool does not allow me to change
the hard disk to be the active partition.

Can anyone offer a solution, other than go buy a cdrom and/or floppy drive?

Many thanks
Gabriel

 

[DL]

Are there any Bios settings to enable your USB drive in the boot sequence?

 

[smlunatick]

hello all,

I have an EVO D510 Slimline with a usb based cdrom drive and no floppy disk.
My BIOS does not detect the usb cdrom so I've had difficulty deploying
Windows XP.
Eventually I found some convoluted USB drivers that made the cdom detectable
but inhibited the operation of my usb based keyboard.
I then managed to boot off a network boot disk on a usb drive and connectto
a Windows XP Professional installation share.
After in run winnt.exe /thard disk) setup copies the files incorrectly to
the usb drive and copies the temp installation files to my disk drive. The
reason is I think, because when I boot off the usb based network boot disk,
this disk is assigned as the active partition. XP appears to install on the
active partition (the usb drive) and then when I reboot the installation
fails to continue. An error appears...something to the tune of "Invalid boot
partition". If I take the usb drive out and try boot off the hard disk there
is still an invalid boot partition.
I could'nt find any switches on winnt.exe to force it to install on a
specific partition. I would imagine this option occurs further down in the
installation process, but as I say the installation does not initially give
me the option.
When I ran fdisk off the usb boot disk, the tool does not allow me to change
the hard disk to be the active partition.

Can anyone offer a solution, other than go buy a cdrom and/or floppy drive?

Many thanks
Gabriel

I believe that the Evo's have a BIOS setting to tell it to use Legacy
USB device. This may let you have the USB drive to be used in the
boot sequence.