Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Contributor Icon Contributed by William_Wilson Date Icon May 2, 2005  
Tag Icon Tagged: Windows installation

This method costs about $20, but is guaranteed to work every time.


- put the harddrive into desktop PC (buy laptop to IDE converter, suggested: www.tigerdirect.ca)

-format the drive to FAT32 (you can always switch it to ntfs later, with a prog such as partition magic)

- Copy I386 folder from WinXP cd onto the laptop harddrive

- put smartdrv.exe in the root directory (speeds up dos transers)

- install dos 7.10 on drive (free download, but I suggest putting your laptop harddrive in IDE 1 to be sure of it’s detection on startup)

- put the harddrive back in the laptop

-When you turn on the laptop DOS should load, otherwise select it from the list

- run smartdrv.exe (type C:\smartdrv.exe at command prompt)

- run 16bit Windows XP installer (type C:\I386\winnt.exe)

- now let the laptop sit! Even if it appears to stall, it will continue, some older harddrives do not spin very fast and need time to load (5-10min is not an unreasonable wait *with smartdrv.exe installed, expect longer without it!

- follow the Windows installer directions!
(Total time, depending on computer speeds: 1-2hrs – though most of this is waiting for Windows XP to install)

*you will now have dos and windows on the drive, you can remove dos, or leave it, it is up to you!!

**The best part about this installation method is it is much cheaper than buying an external drive, as long as you have access to a desktop computer.

***Any questions or comments about this installation method can be sent to: william_a_wilson@hotmail.com

Hope this helps solve your driveless installation problems!!!

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  • Anonymous
    Where can I download dos 7.1 from? and how do I install it? would formating the laptop hd and dumping a 7.1 bootdisk work?
  • Anonymous
    Okay ignore the above I figured it out
  • Arjen
    Problem:

    After the first reboot (after copying files to the destination drive) my laptop doesn't seem to have a bootsystem on the destination drive. My laptop won't restart without the win98-bootfloppy I was told to remove from the drive.

    Could anyone tell me what's wrong?
  • Anonymous
    Why not create a partition and store the setup on d: ?
  • William_Wilson
    *author of above

    partitions may be possible, but they can cause issues with most progs. There are a few Linux based partitioning tools that may be ok, but for the most part windows, especially XP and progs such as partition magic. When running in wnidows and the laptop drive connected as well and not on it's own, these programs assume the drive is a storage drive, even if you make the settings for a boot drive, it will be made ntfs, and thus DOS cannot run on it. There are many drivers for reading ntfs from DOS but none that allow DOS to run on ntfs that i know of.
    I hope this answers your question.
  • William_Wilson
    *author of above

    if your laptop has a floppy drive, this recipe may be a little too basic for you, you can get the 6 installation floppies for XP or XP pro, i believe they are available from the MS site, but if not i have a copy, which should work w/ any legit cd key. For more info leave a msg or e-mail william_a_wilson@hotmail.com

    Thanks for the questions
  • Anonymous
    Here are the errors that I am receiving when trying to load DOS off of the hdd:
    1. “Remove disks or other media
    Press any key to restart

    2. “Non-System disk or disk error
    replace and strike any key when ready”

    If I hit a key then it just goes between the two. I have put DOS onto a 3.5 (a 7.1 DOS setup I found) and it puts these files on the disk:

    AUTOEXEC.BAT
    COMMAND.COM
    CONFIG.SYS
    IO.SYS
    MSDOS.SYS

    Those are all of the files on the floppy and when I boot to that with the floppy DOS comes up and everything and works great. So I put these files in the root dir of the HDD and it still wont boot from the hdd. Those are the only files that I put on there just to test it. Also on my desktop PC I have the option to boot from USB-HDD and so I tried that with the USB (the 2.5” laptop hdd) hooked up and I get the same error’s on my desktop my desktop PC as I do on the laptop. Is there something that I am doing wrong here? Is there a way that you could show me the file tree of yours just to compare (of course you wouldn’t need to include all files of the I386 folder). If you have any other ideas please let me know. It’s greatly appreciated. Thanks!


    -haryy
  • William_Wilson
    *Author of Above

    It is a complicated issue, which wsa sorted out through e-mail, but to anyone with the same issue, the drive must be a primary drive, and dos needs to be installed on the drive, simply copying files to a drive 'can' work in some instances, but in most cases the hard drive does not know that these files are an operating system, even though command.com is in the root of th drive.
    In many cases copying files to a drive through external means can write over the boot sector reserved for such files as windows boot.ini, etc, and result in these errors, as the drive has been modified by windows to be logical as a secondary hard drive, which is why i suggest the adapter and connecting it to IDE channel 1, and the desktop computer will most definately assume it to be primary, as it should be the only hard drive attatched.
    Just keep in mind having an OS installed and knowing the device is to boot, does not mean that your bios and/or harddrive knows this.
    -William. § (marvin_gohan)
  • Anonymous
    im having this problem too and i would like no know how exactly to you copy the i386 folder to the hard drive, any help would be appreciated, thanks
  • Anonymous
    This worked GREAT. I would only add that for people who are not command line literate the best thing to do would be make a directory on "C" drive (C:"MD I386") change to the CD Drive (C:"D:") and use the xcopy command so you also get the directories. (D:"XCOPY I386 C:I386")

    Will be happy to help anyone anyway I can as well. I think this should solve a couple of issues some of you are having.
  • William_Wilson
    Sometimes i forget what i should explain and what i can assume...
    If you are REALLY DOS illiterate you can load back into windows after installing DOS and merely use the laptop drive as a secondary drive and copy the I386 folder that way onto your laptop drive. This requires a few extra restarts, but could save time for those not familiar with DOS.

    Otherwise the adventurous or semi-informed would be well off doing it how 'gadget' described.

    -William. § (marvin_gohan)
  • Anonymous
    Hello William, it goes all well, installation of dos 7.10, booting it from the laptop and executing smartdrv and winnt, but after all windows files get copied and restarts, it doesn't boot anymore i get the message:

    NTLDR missing

    Press any key



    what could be the problem?

    Thanks
  • William_Wilson
    Such an error usually results from an error in copying the i386 folder. If your cd is a legitimate copy just try copying it again, if not, you possibly downloaded a bad copy :p
  • kkk
    No it's not.
    i have exactly the same error.
  • Frank
    I'm a third person with the same problem.

    i386 copied ok but running Winnt prompts the setup to copy some files to disk then reboot. After reboot, all that's displayed is :Operating System Missing", the Setup GUI does not load.
  • capotts0710
    when doing the install xp halts and says missing file asms and the file is not on the hard drive
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