Install XP w/o CD Rom

  • Thread starter Thread starter AJS
  • Start date Start date
A

AJS

Hello,
My laptop (P3, 500Mhz) had an external CD ROM drive which I lost.
I did the following to install XP:
I moved the HD from this Laptop, inserted it to another Laptop, installed XP
on it and then put it back.
When I turned on the laptop it will not boot only gives choices between
"Save Mode" etc. and whatever I chose it went back to that screen.
How can I install XP without a CD ROM?
Thanks,
AJS
 
Hi
If your Laptop has Network Card and it is PXE 2.1 or later capable, then you
can do a Network install.
 
My laptop (P3, 500Mhz) had an external CD ROM drive which I lost.
I did the following to install XP:
I moved the HD from this Laptop, inserted it to another Laptop, installed XP
on it and then put it back.
When I turned on the laptop it will not boot only gives choices between
"Save Mode" etc. and whatever I chose it went back to that screen.
How can I install XP without a CD ROM?
Click to expand...

If the other laptop is of a different type, then the drivers
will be the wrong ones for your laptop.

Some of your choices are:

* Go to a computer shop and borrow a matching CD drive for your
installation. Then you can do a repair installation to the
already existing one to make it bootable. Or you can format the
hard disk and install from scratch.

* Boot from a specially prepared USB memory stick, then start
the actual Windows installation from there. You have to prepare
the stick on another computer. An example for a suitable
operating system on the memory stick would be BartPE, a minimal
version of Windows XP, about 150 MB in size.

Hans-Georg
 
WinXP on one PC will not work on another PC unless you do a repair
installation - unless perhaps the PC's have identical hw
 
Thanks to all,
I finally installed win98 on another computer, put the HD back into my
laptop and shared the CD ROM on a different laptop via the network and
upgraded the system to win xp.


| WinXP on one PC will not work on another PC unless you do a repair
| installation - unless perhaps the PC's have identical hw
|
| | > Hello,
| > My laptop (P3, 500Mhz) had an external CD ROM drive which I lost.
| > I did the following to install XP:
| > I moved the HD from this Laptop, inserted it to another Laptop,
installed
| XP
| > on it and then put it back.
| > When I turned on the laptop it will not boot only gives choices between
| > "Save Mode" etc. and whatever I chose it went back to that screen.
| > How can I install XP without a CD ROM?
| > Thanks,
| > AJS
| >
| >
|
|
 
Hello,
My laptop (P3, 500Mhz) had an external CD ROM drive which I lost.
I did the following to install XP:
I moved the HD from this Laptop, inserted it to another Laptop, installed XP
on it and then put it back.
When I turned on the laptop it will not boot only gives choices between
"Save Mode" etc. and whatever I chose it went back to that screen.
How can I install XP without a CD ROM?
Thanks,
AJS
Click to expand...

It depends on the options you want. For example if you don't need to
partition or format the HDD, you could copy the install files onto it
somewhere, and then start the text mode setup - Winnt.exe or
winnt32.exe (I forget the difference between them)

Someone else suggested PXE, but you need a server to do that.

A USB stick formatted as a FAT volume with the Windows 98 command
prompt and the XP setup files should also be able to start winnt.exe
or winnt32.exe if you need to format/partition the HDD.
 
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