Windows XP install with external CD drive

[Wayne]

I am trying to install XP on a newly installed Maxtor hard
drive. Since the external CD drive requires a driver for
the cpu to recognize the drive, I cannot run setup from
the CD.

I downloaded the diskette version of XP. Then attempted
to run setup from the A: drive. It went through the
motions of loading the 6 disketts. It then asked for the
CD to be loaded. Of course this dosen't work because the
CD Drive is not active at this point.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Ken Simmons [MSFT]]

Hi Wayne,

Try this; Format the drive and copy the i386 directory from the CD to the
hard drive.
Boot from a boot disk and run Winnt from the i386 directory on the hard
drive.

Regards,

Ken Simmons

Microsoft Technical Support for Platforms and Business Applications

 

[Star Fleet Admiral Q]

I guess you didn't catch what the OP is saying - the CD requires additional
drivers to access the CD drive (as the on CD drive is external) - so without
the CD drive having the drivers loaded, the OP can't copy the i386 directory
off the CD to the Hard drive, unless he has a spare PC to connect the hard
drive and it has an internal CD drive.

 

[D.Currie]

I am trying to install XP on a newly installed Maxtor hard
drive. Since the external CD drive requires a driver for
the cpu to recognize the drive, I cannot run setup from
the CD.

I downloaded the diskette version of XP. Then attempted
to run setup from the A: drive. It went through the
motions of loading the 6 disketts. It then asked for the
CD to be loaded. Of course this dosen't work because the
CD Drive is not active at this point.

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

You'll need to find drivers for the CD that will run in DOS mode, if they
exist, and get them on your boot floppies with the proper commands to load
them.

The only other thing I can think of is to put the drive into a different
computer, and copy the CD to the hard drive and install from there.

 

[Patrick J. LoPresti]

When you start the installation process, Windows Setup will display
this message at the bottom of the screen:

Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver

Although your CD-ROM is not SCSI or RAID, it does require an extra
driver, so you need to press F6 at this point and insert your driver
disk. (It has to be the right driver disk. If it has a file named
"txtsetup.oem" on it, then it is right; otherwise, it is not.)

If you have even one additional computer and a home network, you can
instead set up a network-based install. See
<http://unattended.sourceforge.net/>.

- Pat