Installing Windows XP from a hard drive

[xerkon]

Hi, everyone. I've been looking all over the internet for the last couple of hours for an answer to my question and I have yet to come up with one that makes any sense to me.

Here's the deal: I want to copy my windows xp cd to my hard drive and then restart my machine and reinstall windows xp from my hard drive. Why install from the cd when I can install from my hard drive in 1/8 of the time, right?

I read this http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t27603.html and I was very disappointed. The original question seems to echo mine, but the answers are bullcrap. dekaranger: go to where? how? when? why? Am I to navigate, in windows, to the I386 folder? If so, how do I type "winnt" and expect it to do something? Why can't people be more specific? "Don't forget your cd-key?" What the hell? I don't need it because your response makes no sense!

jamadakaso wants to know (I guess) something about his/her "first harddrive." I don't know what that means, and the response is equally confusing. nolookingca: winnt - dos, winnt32 - windows. Are we trying to help each other, or confuse one another? I feel like Bill Gates is responding as he laughs and tosses billions of dollars over his head. Come on, people! I'm thinking that jamadakaso thinks that we're talking about multiple operating systems on the same drive; hence the question about the "new" installation affecting the "installed" installation. Basically the aformentioned thread lead me nowhere. Would someone who knows what they're talking about please tell me how I can, in effect, boot the windows xp cd from my hard drive? That's all I'm asking. I want to be able to install windows from my hard drive instead of the CD.

Good luck, everyone. And, please, if you have the answer, guide me through it, don't assume I know what you're talking about. Thank you!

If this issue has been addressed in another thread (that will help me) please feel free to point me in that direction.

Edited October 6, 2005 by xerkon

[agonified]

Hi xerkon,

With winnt.exe or winnt32.exe, they actually mean go to command prompt (start>run>cmd.exe), go to i386 folder which you copied from cd, and type winnt.exe or winnt32.exe with appropriate arguments ( /makelocalsource for ex.)... If you dont know anything about command prompt, for instance changing the current directory, dont even try to do it.. First, you should learn command prompt.

Try this;

D:\WinXpSp2\i386\winnt32.exe /makelocalsource /tempdrive:D: /s:D:\WinXpSp2\i386

Assuming you copied your cd to D:\winxpsp2 folder, open notepad, copy this line to there, and save as 'install.cmd' without quotes. Then goto the folder where you saved install.cmd then double-click it. With this code, setup will copy files to your hard drive, then reboot machine, start with text-mode setup.. Try it, if doesnt work, let me know...

[xerkon]

Thanks, agonified. I tried what you said. Here's what I got...

must go to bed now...hope for answers in the morning...

Edited October 6, 2005 by xerkon

[agonified]

As written there, your installed windows is newer than the cd.. I dont know why the 'continue' option is disabled.. I 'll search...

Have you tried search it in google??

I think you have sp1 cd but you have sp2 installed on your machine.. Try slipstreaming sp2 into your installition source and try again..

http://www.google.com/search?q=setup+canno...rsion+on+the+cd

Edited October 6, 2005 by agonified

[xerkon]

The thing is, everything is coming from the same copy of windows. How can my "Installed version," be newer than the version I'm trying to install when they both come from the same disc?

I guess what I am wondering is, what happens when my pc boots? It looks for a bootable windows cd-rom and if it doesn't find one it goes on to the hard drives. It's at that point that I need it to look for a "bootable image," but it just goes on to one of my two windows installations without pause. I've copied my windows xp cd to my c: drive, hoping that it would attempt to boot from that, but to no avail. Truth be told, I've tried quite a few things, such as that, which I really didn't think would work, but which I thought I'd try anyway. How do I get my computer to look for a "windows cd" on a hard drive which already contains previous installations of windows? Just thought I'd ask!

[xerkon]

I was working from a slipstreamed windows xp, with sp2. It didn't make any difference.

I am wondering, when my computer boots and looks for a bootable cd and doesn't find one and then moves on to the hard drives, why doesn't it find a bootable hard drive? I've copied my windows cd to my C: drive (which, to be quite honest, I didn't think would work, but I thought I'd try it anyway,) but it just bypasses that and moves on to the two windows partitions I've already installed, (one on c: and one on f:). I guess what I've been wondering is how can I tell my computer to look for, not a bootable cd, but a bootable hd? There's no problem when my computer looks for a bootable cd-rom, but when it comes to looking for a bootable anything-else, there's nothing there.

I think I copied myself there a little bit. oops!

I don't have the energy to consolidate.

going to bed now... <---that's me snoring!

(by the way, i'm still waiting on someone to tell my why I can't install windows from my hard drive!!!)

[agonified]

Dude,

There is a bootsector on your harddrive that tells computer to load that that file run this file etc.. Your boot sector just directs the system to windows loaders no matter what you have copied to hard drive. Dont ask me "how can change boot sector" since this is what I am searchin' for for 2 months.

Now, that's the way;

Open explorer, goto your setup files and double click winnt32.exe. Select new installition, accept the agreement, enter your cd key, click advanced options, select both options there(if the upper one is grayed out, this is OK), and continue with the process. Setup will copy needed files to somewhere, make your harddisk bootable to textmode setup of windows(that's you've asked).

Hope works...

[xerkon]

will try later on today. thanks for your suggestions, agonified!

[At0mic]

Assuming your harddrive is FAT32 and your i386 dir is in the root of d:

1. Boot to a DOS disk (windows 9x startup disk will do just fine)

2. Format C:

3. Run SMARTDRV (if you dont have it, download it)

4. D:

5. CD i386

6. winnt

Setup will now install Windows XP from the harddrive.

Edited October 6, 2005 by At0mic

[Shamwari]

3. Run SMARTDRV (if you dont have it, download it)

What does this do? Why do you need it?

[At0mic]

3. Run SMARTDRV (if you dont have it, download it)

What does this do? Why do you need it?

its called SmartDrive but smartdrv.exe is its filename. Its just a disk cacheing program for DOS. It isn't needed to install XP but I highly recommend it. For example, the last time I tried to install Windows 2000 from a hard drive, I gave up after like 3 hours because thats how bad it is. Load up smartdrv which is only about 45Kb and you can install windows in the normal time. Its the unpacking of the cabinet file which sufferes if you dont load smartdrv. It greatly speeds up install time by many times.

[bigbroantonio]

Hi xerkon.

I've installed using hd without the cd many times, and it works excellently.

Firstly, I suggest you format your hard drive, which is probably C:. You can do this in various ways. I suggest you boot your pc from a windows 98 boot disk (if you don't have one you can get one here) and "format c:". The link is a Winimage self extractor, which will create a boot floppy. It already contains smartdrv which will speed up the installation process.

Now that your hd is "clean", you need to copy the i386 folder (from your cd) to c:\i386.

To do this, there are various methods. One is:

1 Type "c:" (which will take you to the root of the hd)

2 Type "mkdir i386" (which will make the i386 folder on the hd)

3 Type "D:" (or whatever drive letter your cd has)

4 Type "copy D:\i386 c:\i386" (this will copy all the files you need from the cd to your hd)

5 Now go back to A: and run smartdrv.exe. Don't forget to do this, otherwise the installation may even take hours.

6 Now Type c:\i386\winnt.exe

This will start your fresh installation.

If you had typed d:\i386\winnt.exe, on the other hand (as someone suggested) it would work, but would still use the cd to install.

Another method to do everything would be to copy the i386 folder to your hd root from xp, and then use the floppy boot disk and erase all the files and folders (except i386) from the hd. It really isn't worth it!

Any doubts, let me know.

[At0mic]

If you had typed d:\i386\winnt.exe, on the other hand (as someone suggested) it would work, but would still use the cd to install.

I based my instructions on him having a D: partition on his harddrive. Which is why I put at the top "Assuming your harddrive is FAT32 and your i386 dir is in the root of d:" - d: meaning harddrive. I assumed D: was a harddrive just like you assumed D: was a CD-ROM.

Both of us can only give answers based on assumptions due to the lack of hard infomation we have about bigbroantonio's computer. I based my assumption on experience that most computers I've fixed for people have a D: partition.

[bigbroantonio]

Sorry, At0mic, I should've said:

If you had typed d:\i386\winnt.exe, on the other hand (as someone suggested) it would work, but would PROBABLY still use the cd to install, unless D: is the hd partition you copied the i386 folder to.

But I don't remember reading that xerkon'd D: drive wasn't actually his cd. He claims to have hd partitions on c: and f:, and as far as I've understood (presuming!) he's trying to install on C:.

Of course, if D: is a hd partition, then your instructions are perfectly right.

But based on my experience (here's me assuming again!!) on most computers you get one hd, which is given C:, and one cd/dvd drive (D:). If new partitions are created, more often than not the user will assign the next avaiable letter to the partition, which would be E:, usually. I ASSUME xerkon has two cd/dvd drives (D: and E:) and created a new partition (F:), leaving the cd/dvd drives' partition letters intact.

Now he's trying to install XP on C:

I've copied my windows cd to my C: drive

And here I have another suggestion, which could help xerkon with the first part of my instructions:

If you can, you can copy the i386 folder to F: (even by booting Windows using the F: partition), and then run the installer by typing "F:\i386\winnt.exe", which will start your installation on C:, using the F: partition to get all the data from.

I didn't remember to say, as Atomic did, that having a FAT32 partition containing the i386 folder is important, otherwise the ordinary boot floppy won't be able to run the installation file.

And I repeat, remember to run SMARTDVR

Edited October 7, 2005 by bigbroantonio

[dcyphure]

dont you think it wouldve been faster in the longrun to install from cd, i mean you wanted it to install faster but you couldve had it done along time ago lol