Bootable IDE HDD?

[OkayMelvin]

I've got an IDE HDD swap bay where I can swap drives in and out without opening the case.

My CD drive frequently bonks during installation of XP Pro. Thus, I'd like to install from a HDD in my swap bay.

Here's my question: How do I make this thing bootable? (All of the information that I'm finding so far pertains to making a USB drive bootable.)

TIA

[0d14r3]

Format the hd with system option.

Copy the XP_UACD directory to your hd.

Create an autoexec.bat to call C:\XP_UACD\SETUP.EXE

0d

[OkayMelvin]

Format the hd with system option.

Copy the XP_UACD directory to your hd.

Create an autoexec.bat to call C:\XP_UACD\SETUP.EXE

Many thanks!

EDIT:

Oops. I spoke too soon. Formatting with the system option was easy with Win9X, but I can't see how to do it with XP. There's no check box for it, and there doesn't seem to be a switch for it either... at least not according to format /? .

Edited August 21, 2007 by OkayMelvin

[0d14r3]

Yeah. That is true.

Your only option is format a disk with system, boot from it and format your hd swap bay with system option and at fat32.

Copy the XP_UACD directory to your hd.

Create an autoexec.bat to call C:\XP_UACD\SETUP.EXE

I use a similar swap bay to update the BIOS in my NF7-S board with an hd IDE 850 mb and XP system.

0d

[Sancho]

I heard you can start a BartPE session and open files in it, maybe just do that and click the setup.exe or winnt/winnt32.exe file from the HD.

[jaclaz]

To (hopefully) clarify the matter:

DOS 6.22 had a /s switch for FORMAT that did FOUR things (last three specific of the /s switch):

1) Formatted the filesystem (FAT16 only)

2) made a bootable partition bootsector invoking IO.SYS and MSDOS.SYS

3) copied IO.SYS as FIRST file in the partition

4) copied also the other "system files" MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM

DOS 7.x (aka Windows 9x/ME) had a /s switch that did exactly the same, with these changes:

a. filesystem could be both FAT16 and FAT32 (starting from Windows 95 OSR 2)

b. there is no more the need for IO.SYS to be first file in partition

In all the above OS a hard disk needed to be partitioned by the FDISK command into one or more volume(s) before beiing able to use the FORMAT command.

Starting from Windows NT:

1) there is no more the FDISK command but one needs to use Disk Management to partition drives

2) the format command has no more the /s switch, ANY partition formatted has a bootable bootsector, invoking NTLDR, and NO system files are copied to the partition by the format command.

NT originally supported FAT16 and NTFS (an early version, need at least SP3 to access newer "Win2K" NTFS)

Win2K, XP and Server 2003 support FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS natively.

Specifically with your IDE "second" drive, you might find problems to boot from it, not because it is not bootable in itself, but because if you boot from it, it will get letter "C:\" shifting your normal drive letter assignments.

There are a few workarounds for this, most notably using a "migrate.inf" file to "keep old settings" and/or use a loader like grub4dos to exchange hard disk order.

Some info is given in these threads, that, though aimed to installing from a USB device, can be adapted to your situation:

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=81788&st=6

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=61384&hl=

Using a PE of some kind and WINNT32 is a good solution, as if you build the PE from XPSP2 the booted volume should get the X:\ letter.

jaclaz

[0d14r3]

Thanks for the clarification, jaclaz.

0d

Edited August 22, 2007 by 0d14r3