Windows XP Pro setup issue...
 

Ok - got a bit of an issue here.

A friend of mine bought a new machine and it has 32 bit Vista on it. He despises it, so he brought it over to me and asked me to put XP on it. Sure I think, no problem. His old PC had XP, so he has the media and a valid key to install. I'm thinking this is cake, boot from the cd, repartition and format the drive like he wants it, install and done right? Not quite. Problem number one - he was one of the first adopters of XP - so his media isnt bootable. Well shoot says I - off to MS and download the bootable floppies. Create them and get ready - only to hook up his machine - and find that he doesnt have a floppy drive. URGH!!!

So what I need to do create a XP Pro bootable SETUP cd. Remember that his media is pre service packs - so I have to use the original set of files and not the sp2 style. I have the files (remember I have the floppies) but I have burnt a number of coasters trying to get the full setup to let me run. I've googled and the answer so far seems to be buy a third party app (not happening as this is already being done gratis) or calling MS to get a bootable cd instead of his old media. I will do that - but its going to take em a while to get it here - and I'd like to get him up this weekend.

Right now - unless someone can save my professional pride here and instruct me on how to get just the setup bootable from cd - or steer me to a iso of one if there is one out there - I am going to cheat. I will crack his box and temporarily hook up my floppy drive provided he has a floppy controller onboard, and if he doesnt - then I am going to put his drive in my machine, run the initial setup and let it format and copy the initial files, then when it restarts to boot from the drive and do the rest of the setup - I will move the drive back. I really just hate to tear my stuff apart to do this.

Any ideas? Thanks in advance!

Just install a floppy drive, they cost $20 or rip the one out of his old machine, even if you just hang it out the side, will get you by!:yep: One of the main problems you will run into however is partitioning the new drive, old XP will only recognize partitions to 130gb IIRC, there are ways around it but not that easy, what I did was to install XP regardless then do a ghost backup, then restore to a "Drive" (not partition) and it will ghost to 500gb drives etc!:up:
Have fun!:doh:

Well I broke open his box - god what a mess. This is turning into a real headache. His mb doesnt have a freakin FDD controller!!! I know I had heard a few ones don't, but this really creates a problem. :damn: I know floppies are going the way of the dodo but this is ridiculous!

Only way out of this barring a bootable setup cd that I can see is hooking his drive to my machine and doing the initial part of the install there. Hopefully there is no HAL stuff that takes place in the first segment.

FYI - avoid a Intel DP35DP if you need a FDD.....

As Firewall said..
How old is his computer? You might be able to boot from a flashdrive, or even boot a win 98 boot disk into dos with CD-ROM drivers and go from there.. not sure if that does it tho.. never tried it. :hmm:

Its a new box - intel core 2 quad cpu in it.

A usb floppy may be something I will invest in for the future, since I suspect new boards like this will support usb floppies thru the bios. Looks like the only easy way should I ever run into this again. Either that or I will take the time to figure out how to make a bootable setup iso.

For now, I will just move his drive into my machine and am going with allowing setup to copy the initial files and then move the drive back. Thanks guys, it was definitely worth a try.

CH I've done this once when I had a non bootible CD from MS. I would use an older XP CD and swap it after the partition is completed just after the installation of the basic file to the harddrive. Swap the CD and reboot it. It will load the hardrive setup and continue. Then his orginal MS XP CD should continue the setup as normal...


If I understand you problem correctly? This should work.:hmm: