Install Win 2K from hard drive w/out CD-ROM?

  • Thread starter Thread starter C Lee
  • Start date Start date
C

C Lee

Hi All

My friend has a Win2K Pro laptop with a non-operational
internal CD-ROM drive. Recently she upgraded to SP4 and
is now having all sorts of problems.

During the SP4 installation she did NOT archive her old
settings. This means there is no way to restore a
working configuration, as I understand it, except by re-
installing Win2K Pro.

However, as noted, the internal CD-ROM drive does not
work on this laptop. Her hard drive does have a copy of
the Win2K CD-ROM (installed by the manufacturer),
though.

My question is simple: can I re-install Win2K over SP4
from the hard drive? If not, can I do a clean install of
Win2K from the hard drive?

I am reluctant to do anything before getting some
feedback as if things go wrong, the faulty internal CD-
ROM means she has no way of re-installing her OS.
Obviously buying a new internal CD-ROM drive would be one
option, but it is a proprietry drive and the manufacturer
is quoting a price of several hundred dollars, which
seems very excessive.

TIA

C
 
Post more info:
1. Is the internal CD drive hardware broken, for sure? Could it just be
a corrupted W2k driver problem or other software? (If uncertain, try a
DOS boot diskette with the necessary general-purpose CD software
included.) What clues can you find in Event Viewer & Device Manager?
2. What is the partitioning structure on the laptop's hard drive?
Where's the W2k CD image? Where's the owner's precious data? How are the
partitions formatted (FAT32/NTFS)? How full are the partitions?
3. What EXACTLY is/are the natures/symptoms of "all sorts of problems"?

You can install W2k from the hard drive, but that might be a destructive
fix and, depending on the above, might well be unnecessary.
 
Hi

Thanks for the response. In answer to your questions:

1. Yes, the internal CD is definitely broken, according
to the manufacturers.

2. Hard Drive has two partitions, both of 10GB or so,
both fairly empty, both NTFS. The Win2K CD image is on
Drive C in a folder called I386. As far as I can tell it
is a complete image.

3. The problems since the install of SP4 are those
reported widely on the Internet by other people who
installed SP4 (and yes, we should have done some research
before installing...)

You said that installing from the hard drive would be
possible. Could you be a little more specific about what
to do? Can I just run setup from within Windows, or will
I need to do it from the floppy boot disks? If the
latter, does Windows give me the option to choose from
where to install? I'm concerned that if I start the
process it will demand the CD-ROM in the drive and will
not finish the install without it. Then my friend would
be left with a partially-installed OS.

Many thanks again

C
 
(An aside:) You could of course search for (or post regarding) each
problem you believe SP4 introduced. When SP4 was released, these NGs
were inundated with posts about resulting problems, but such are
relatively rare now and I believe most or all of the problems have been
resolved by subsequent update releases. (This is an aside.)

(An aside:) CD drives are pretty cheap now (laptops not so.)

1. Assuming C: is the system-residence directory, move the \i386 to D:.
ALSO make sure you have necessary W2k-specific drivers on D:, and any
library of SPs and updates you'll want to reinstall. A clean W2k
install will obliterate the current C:, which will be deleted and become
"free space".

2. Acquire a W98 boot floppy from www.bootdisk.com, if you do not
already have a known-good bootable DOS floppy at hand. Acquire the
NTFSDOS driver from www.sysinternals.com and put it on that floppy. Now
the DOS boot floppy's DOS will be able to manipulate NTFS formatted
structures.
- with that floppy at hand, and the \i386 material on D:, you won't get
into any permanent crippling situation. Barring major error.

3. From within the "problematic" W2k SP4 system, if you can, launch:
D:\i386\winnt32.exe (with the parameters you want, if any)
As you know, this will start the W2k installer. I think (but am not
absolutely positive) it will proceed normally through the entire install
process. You might as well try this; it's the simplest thing, and you're
safe if it doesn't work.

If it doesn't work, your fallback is booting from that floppy and
launching the installer from the command line. You may have to use the
16-bit installer:
D:\i386\winnt.exe (parameters as above)

4. When the installer offers you options about deleting/creating/
formatting existing partitions, DELETE C:. Then when that's done,
IMMEDIATELY ABORT that install. Just power off.

5. Now reboot to that floppy and restart the installer. This
abort/restart step prevents any chance of unexpected drive letter
assignments.

6. Proceed to install W2k into that available free space. The newly
created W2k partition will be a new C:. The install should proceed
normally; the installer will ask you early on to tell it where the
install files are, or to confirm that D:\i386 is correct. It is. (Check
that at this stage of the process, which is intermediate, D: is really
D: and not temporarily C: or E: etc. It should still be D: unless I'm
missing something.)

It would be great if you'd post back in this thread with results. If you
get into a snarl, there are other ways of getting this done, but none
simpler that I know of. If the machine is a desktop, for example, it's
very simple to substitute a borrowed CD drive for the duration of the
install process. Just takes a screwdriver. Electric-train-type
"engineering" savvy required; case cover off, disconnect 1 power and 1
data cable from old drive, unscrew 4 screws from drive & remove it,
insert & screw in new drive, reconnect cables, go.

Test that boot floppy once you've got it in hand, just to be sure all is
copacetic.
 
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