installing OS with no CD-rom

The_B_Man

Hey,
I want to isntall XP on my laptop here, but I have no CD-Rom in it.

I do have an external HDD, and a 64mb usb key.

I installed XP through windows already and have my current setup here, but theres a few niggly problems and kinks brought on by installing windows over an existing installation, ie 2 OS's on the same partition.

Now, I want to start from scratch again. I have nothing on this HDD that i havent backed up, so what I need is a way to boot, get access to the XP install on my HDD, and then do the install.

My HDD, will not boot.
I have no floppy drive either.
The USB key is fairly old so im not sure it even works!! (tho could prob borrow one for an hour or 2).

last option would be to create a small partition on this hdd, install windows on that, wipe this current partition, isntall from the new windows install, boot up into that 2nd new isntallation, and then delete the leftover XP partition....but thats WAY too much hassle!!

any suggestions?

thanks.

FruitLover

Are you able to boot from a USB key? If so, there might be a way to copy the windows installation files from another host over the network (after wiping/recreating your partition(s) on the HD). If you boot from a DOS boot disk converted to USB key (check bootdisk.com), then you could probably run the windows setup files from that.

The_B_Man

from using old boot floppies and trying to open the with a CD in it, i'm assuming its hard to get the USB to detect the external USB HDD? coz if i can access the hdd from booting off the usb key, i can prob browse for the windows setup.exe and run from there....

im jsut not sure if thats possible...

Black_Knight

The_B_Man wrote: »

from using old boot floppies and trying to open the with a CD in it, i'm assuming its hard to get the USB to detect the external USB HDD? coz if i can access the hdd from booting off the usb key, i can prob browse for the windows setup.exe and run from there....

im jsut not sure if thats possible...

I know I just had a 64Mb USB stick in the PC here and when it rebooted it said cannot load OS from USB device. So obviously im guessing you might be able to boot from a USB.

Capt'n Midnight

64MB is a wee bit small, a 128MB would allow you to use puppylinux , you could use it to copy files from the external HDD / resize partitions and all that good stuff

the USB stick needs to be reformatted to make it bootable. HP have a nice utility to do that , unless the BIOS recognises the external HDD you need an OS with drivers to do that, maybe you need to make the HDD bootable with
make partiton Active
FDISK/MBR
SYS X: etc.

The_B_Man

would that wipe any of the HDD? like i've 300gb of movies, mp3s etc.....

Capt'n Midnight

yes it would, - your HDD is most likely NTFS so writing to it from a small OS would not be easy

damnsmalllinux will fit on a 64MB drive, might see the HDD

gamer

buy usb external,drive 500gig 90euro approx,go2friend place hd as drive d,into pc,copy all files over to usb drive,then format the hd to fat32 format,copy all the windows cdrom into root,ie d:\,say your pc is p4 2.0ghz, go to friend that has a p4 pc ,1.5 p4,,similar cpu, to you, after format install windows from cdrom,or in dos prompt browse to ,i think its win32 /setup,
google install windows xp in dos mode,not sure about the setup folder location.
maybe u cud borrow a usb floppy drive from sum1, install win98se bootdisk on floppy,see bootdisk.com,bootdisk only works on hd formatted in fat32.
when installing pc knock off power, take out pc power from esb socket.otherwise you,ll dame the pc mobo/cpu.
google how to make usb drive bootable,be real careful.

The_B_Man

OK, so i managed to get my hands on a 512mb USB Key.

i tried looking for that puppy linux but as well as finding it a bit of xtra hassle (as the instructions say you've to burn to a CD first, and i've no CDrom), i also questioned its ability to run an exe, which is the whole point here. Even if i could get it to boot to a command line interface, it probably wouldnt run the exe.

i also tried some of those boot disks suggested above, but i dont think they support USB from DOS.

Is it possible to run a win98 install on a 512mb key? or Windows CE even?

Basically i need anything that can run an exe off a usb device from a cmd line that will fit on 512mb usb key!

Thomas_S_Hunterson

/edit: Just re-read your post.

There might be a way to install windows over a network using a USB boot disk. I wouldn't know much about it for windows, but perhaps someone else might.

Overheal

why is it you have no CD-Rom? Is it that you have no slot for it or you have a broken Drive?

Capt'n Midnight

HP have a utility to make USB bootable ,
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

The_B_Man

Overheal wrote: »

why is it you have no CD-Rom? Is it that you have no slot for it or you have a broken Drive?

its a laptop and basically it has no CD-rom in it at all, so unless i get an external one, I have to find other means of installing the OS.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

HP have a utility to make USB bootable ,
http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm

I tried that already. You have to supply your own boot configuration files. The only ones I had were the ones I took of a boot floppy i made in XP, and the ones i got off bootdisk.com itself for win98se. They let me boot off the USB key to a C:, which was the USB Key itself, and i tried A: from the cmd line and it said there was no disk present. any other letters I got the "invalid Drive specification" error.

So basically, i had a bootable pen drive, but couldnt actually do anything with it!

From reading online, as USB was made after DOS was pretty much made defunct, there are no native USB drivers, or no easy way to access USB devices directly from DOS. There was snippets of people getting it working, but they seemed quite complicated. I think one guy used some IOMEGA USB drivers which he amalgamated into the configs.sys file or autoexec.bat or something like that, but I couldnt really tell what the hell was goin on to be honest!!

SickBoy

Not sure if you have the means to do this but you can install from a network server if you're able to boot your laptop from floppy or USB key.

Check out the network install from this site

SickBoy

Actually just read your last post there and it seems you were able to boot to your USB key and had a c:
If this is the case then copy the contents of the i386 folder to your USB key(if it will fit) and run the commands listed in the network setup

X:\i386\winnt replacing "X" with your actual drive letter.

Hope this helps...

The_B_Man

OK, I'll try that when I get home.

For clarity,

• I copy the i386 folder to my USB key, which then boots as C:.
• I run C:\i386\winnt and the initial loader will begin.
• It will then ask for the location of the install files.
• I SHOULD be able to see my USB external HDD and point it to them.
• Install goes ahead

That all seems fine but I'm concerned that the USB Key on C: might cause some sort of conflict and my XP install might install on another drive letter.

Suppose I'll have to try it when I get home and see what happens!

TerrorFirmer

Yes you can install Windows XP from a 512mb USB key easily; use NLite to strip down installation and then the necessary apps to make the key bootable.

http://www.eeeguides.com/2007/11/installing-windows-xp-from-usb-thumb.html

SickBoy

The_B_Man wrote: »

OK, I'll try that when I get home.

For clarity,

• I copy the i386 folder to my USB key, which then boots as C:.
• I run C:\i386\winnt and the initial loader will begin.
• It will then ask for the location of the install files.
• I SHOULD be able to see my USB external HDD and point it to them.
• Install goes ahead

That all seems fine but I'm concerned that the USB Key on C: might cause some sort of conflict and my XP install might install on another drive letter.

Suppose I'll have to try it when I get home and see what happens!

As it stands, you're able to boot using your USB key right?
If that's the case then all you need to do is copy the i386 folder from the install CD to the USB key and run the command once you boot from the USB key.
There should be no need for pointing at your external HDD.

The_B_Man

So the i386 folder contains the WHOLE of the XP install files? Didnt think it was that small!

The reason I said to point to the external HDD is coz thats where I put the contents of the XP CD for the install! I assumed it would be way bigger than 512MB or whatever, so I based all my previous efforts on reading the USB HDD.

Overheal

Lol... it might be worth asking the Manufacturer how they got the OS on there in the first place.

The_B_Man

Overheal wrote: »

Lol... it might be worth asking the Manufacturer how they got the OS on there in the first place.

Docking station!

ah no, if i had an external CD Drive it would solve so many problems! Though i've a few ideas to test out tonight. hopefully i'll get it sorted and save meself some headaches in future!!