tha_inspecta Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 hi everyone,is it possible to let windows copy the needed installation files to hdd and than let it install from hdd, so i can take out the cdrom when windows is installing?thanx in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dansouza Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 I don't know what version of Windows you're using but both XP and 2000 Pro do that automatically. It copies the files needed for setup from the CD and does the actual install from the hard drive. Once the drive is formatted, files are copied and setup begins, it runs from the hard drive from there. After 1st reboot you can take out the CDIf you're using 98 or ME you can do it by first booting from a floppy and choosing "Start with CD Rom Support" then after formatting the hard drive, type the following at the command prompt: (the text in brackets is key presses, not text to type)C: [enter]md win98 (or win9x for ME) [enter]cd win98 (or win9x) [enter]D: (or whatever letter your cd rom is) [enter]cd win98 (or win9x) [enter]copy *.* C: [enter]This copies all of the contents of the win9x or win98 folder to the folder of the same name on your hard drive. If you're using ME, you'll need to boot from floppy to do the install. If 98, type at the command prompt: sys C:That copies command.com to the hard drive and makes it bootable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asin Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Actually, I think that I've seen my modular drive light flash a few times when I'm reinstalling Windows XP Home during the GUI Setup, so I think that I know what tha_inspecta is talking about.It's a Dell OEM CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gouki Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 Exactly ... My CDRom light flashed too, so I guess the GUI installation uses something from the CD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kazuza Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 (edited) CD install reads from CD!Perform an Unattended Install through a network maped driveNo CD will be required after boot, but you need WinPE or BartPE to boot the machine to be installed. It can be removed safely after 1st reboot Edited September 3, 2005 by kazuza Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asin Posted September 3, 2005 Share Posted September 3, 2005 The only thing that I can think of at this time is using custom and non-standard regional settings which would require access to the i386\lang folder. Things like using Canadian English as opposed to US English. Although it doesn't work, I still like changing it just for the hell of it.I guess that I could always remove the CD and see what happens, but I don't know much and only recently started doing unattended installations, so I try and not waste anymore time if I'm reinstalling Windows by playing around with the installer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gouki Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 But why not leave the CD there for another 5 or 10 minutes?If your installing on different computers, than the solution would be a network install or multiple CDs burned with your XP .ISO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthewk Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 If you can remove the cd after first reboot, does that mean that $oem$ contents and all are copied to the HD temporarily for the whole install process? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aspenjim Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 Or you can make a small partition and copy the i386 directory and boot with a dos bootdisk and run winnt.exe. you can also a full unattended installation with a couple of switches (forget the exact syntax though). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Asin Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 If you can remove the cd after first reboot, does that mean that $oem$ contents and all are copied to the HD temporarily for the whole install process?The $OEM$ contents will be copied to the hard drive if you have theOemPreinstall = Yesproperty in the [unattended] section of winnt.sif.The files in $OEM$ are never cleaned up by the Windows installer. They will remain on the hard drive until you delete them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yonderboy Posted September 4, 2005 Share Posted September 4, 2005 You can't take out the CD. Even if does not make sense to me also, and I don't see the point in reading the media after everything has been coppied to harddrive, the setup is constantly accessing the media througout the GUI part of setup.If you take out the CD, setup starts complaining about it very quickly.Ask MS why... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tha_inspecta Posted September 5, 2005 Author Share Posted September 5, 2005 thanx for all the reply's!but i think it's better to keep the cd inside the drive!i did some research and found out some technical stuff that accesses the cd during setup! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonic Posted September 5, 2005 Share Posted September 5, 2005 yes not all the files are copied to hdd during the first text-based setup ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyanide Posted September 6, 2005 Share Posted September 6, 2005 mostly, when gui portion of setup says "Installing Start Menu Items", it reads almost everything from cd...dunno why but i guess that during txtmode of setup, it does not copy the application cab files, and directly unpacks them during gui mode..thats why it requires cd during gui mode of setup... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now