How install windows from the hard drive ?

[Jeremy]

if you look closely, you will notice that amit_talkin's and T D's avatar are the same with only slight differences. That's interesting.

Ignore this post.

[T D]

I got mine off torrentfreak.com

It was pretty big and has been cropped so that's why mine is lower quality.

[Jeremy]

Hey, no need to defend your avatar, I haven't updated mine in... well... I can't remember. I also haven't formatted in 7 months or more... but that's beside the point.

Adobe Photoshop could make that logo look like a digital artifact, lol.

Edited June 30, 2006 by Jeremy

[Doctor Trout]

Basically, my win source is on another partition (G:)

I created a ms-dos startup floppy disk in my computer>3 1/2 floppy. Right click, format, create msdos startup disk.

Done.

I boot from the floppy til I reach the dos prompt. I type

g:

.\i386\winnt.exe

And that's how I install windows. I always burn to a dvdrw just in case.

Is this quicker than installing from a disc? Presumably it is - how much quicker is it?

[hyipo]

I have a idea. Since the CD uses a boot file copy all the cds into another partition in your hard drive like a recovery partition. Just set a option to boot it up like.

In Dos(Im not flaming just typing in caps because it does that in Dos):

You can set the boot.ini [bootloader] to do this:

WINDOWS XP HOME EDITION

MY OWN RECOVERY PARTITION

That way no need for cd

Edited July 1, 2006 by hyipo

[T D]

It is quicker from a hdd because transfer speeds are faster.

Look at it like this: you want to run a game, you'd be more likely to make an iso and mount it via Alcohol or Daemon Tools wouldn't you? That's because it#s faster.

But it seems broken if you nlite it.

[Doctor Trout]

It is quicker from a hdd because transfer speeds are faster.

Look at it like this: you want to run a game, you'd be more likely to make an iso and mount it via Alcohol or Daemon Tools wouldn't you? That's because it#s faster.

Oh yeah, I always knew it would be quicker for that very reason, but I was just wondering how much quicker.

But it seems broken if you nlite it.

Are you saying that you can't do it from the hard drive if you nLite it? Is that with the floppy disk trick, or with the boot.ini trick?

[Camarade_Tux]

It may be much faster or not.

It takes me less than 1 minute to start the windows installation and then it needs 2 or 3 minutes to copy files. My installation CD is really small and I have no RAID driver to load.

Still, when I use a virtual machine, where files are read from the hard drive, it only takes 10 seconds to start windows installation and file copy needs 1 minute.

If you have a big CD and RAID drivers to load during textmode part of the setup, then installing from a hard-drive will be much faster. Not because of transfer rates but because of access times.

Edited July 2, 2006 by Camarade_Tux

[T D]

@Doctor Trout: w/the floppy disk trick, I tried it after someone posted about it here.

[Sandro]

i've tried following methods, but none succeeded.

1. ISO Emu Loader, which can load an iso-image by starting up.

2. the methode of loading WinPE-ISO-Image with ramdisk, using setupldr.bin and ramdisk.sys from win2k3 server sp1.

3. boot computer using WinPE, then load WinLite.iso using VCdControlTool.exe of MS, then run setup.exe

4. boot computer using WinPE, and install windows using winnt32.exe in I386,

winnt32 /makelocalsource /noreboot

5. boot computer using dos bootdisk, run smartdrv.exe and run winnt.exe in I386

winnt /s:c:\i386 /u:c:\i386\winnt.sif

6. use the bootsect.dat file, which is created by winnt.exe, copy bootsect.dat into I386, then add an entry into boot.ini

C:\I386\BOOTSECT.DAT="nLite Windows XP SP2 Setup"

7. at first install windows in VMware using WinLite.iso, after the file-copying stage (txtsetup install stage), copy all the files to primary partition of host os, add an entry into boot.ini

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="nLite Windows XP SP2 Setup" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT

8. completely install windows in VMware using WinLite.iso, delete hardware drivers, change computer into Standard PC, then use setupmgr.exe in deploy.cab of windows setup CD to create an unattended answer file, then use sysprep.exe to reseal the system. At last use ghost to copy the VMware Harddisk Image to real Harddisk.

Is installing WinLite.iso using ISO-image file really impossible?

[T D]

Your boot.ini Sandro is messed up. That's the boot execution for a normal Windows OS but instead of "Windows Xp Professional/Home", it's "nLite Windows XP SP2 Setup". Try

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\XPCD\WINNT.EXE="nLite Windows XP SP2 Setup"

Edited July 4, 2006 by T D

[jaclaz]

Your boot.ini Sandro is messed up. That's the boot execution for a normal Windows OS but instead of "Windows Xp Professional/Home", it's "nLite Windows XP SP2 Setup". Try

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\XPCD\WINNT.EXE="nLite Windows XP SP2 Setup"

You are telling NTLDR to directly load a DOS 16 bit program?

Entries in boot.ini can only be:

1) An arcpath leading to a directory

2) A bootsector

Some more info and links:

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=17538

jaclaz

[T D]

I'm guessing I've seen it used to launch a program before w/a direct program entry on a windows upgrade install.