Installing XP on Old PC!

Hay guys!

I'm just wondering if anyone have any idea on how to install XP on a PC that's got no CD-ROM, no USB Boot, No Floppy. All I can do is shove data into the drive.

I've try installing XP on another PC and move it over, but it always hang just before the logo!

I have this POS: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~pb22/iPAQ/10638_na.html

I cannot get access to the motherboard due to 2 security screws so... I cannot plug a CD-ROM in or a floppy drive.

Boot Choices.
1. HDD
2. Network (PXE)

Any ideas? Network Installation without Windows Server? Possible? :O

 

You could try PXE but you would need a server with a way to do remote installations.

 

Since you have another computer and can plug that HDD to it, here is the proper way to do it:

1. Remove the HDD from the old PC, plug it to your other PC and make a partition (e.g. D:\) for the new XP.

2. Put in the XP CD and run the winnt32.exe in the I386 folder with following switches:

/tempdrive
/syspart
/makelocalsource
/noreboot

Start -> Run -> ...\i386\winnt32.exe /tempdrive:d /syspart:d /makelocalsource /noreboot

3. VERY IMPORTANT step if you want the drive letter to appear as C:\ on the old PC:

Go to D:\$WIN_NT.~BT\ and delete the MIGRATE.INF file.

If you skip this step, your Windows partition will stay as D:\ or whatever drive letter appeared on the other PC.

4. Unplug the HDD, plug it back to the old PC, boot up, and continue the rest of the installation.

 

Wow :O Your instruction is so detail that it beats expert exchange (which u hav to pay for :O!)

Trying it now! But if others have other ideas feel free to post TYTY!

 

Wow, stewie; that's some good stuff!

 

More than good stuff...let's just hope it works!

 

Thanks, guys.

Maiev, let me know how it goes.

 

Nice one stewie. If my 10 year old comp ever dies, and I`ll decide to put Xp on it, I`ll know where to look.
Bookmarked!
rep ya later...(24 h limit again)

 

Definitely. You were quick with a solution too!

This is a PC I wanted to fix at work, long story short. I better get it fixed ;O! QUICK! LOL So I'm already trying to see if it works ;O!

 

OMFG This works :O! THANKSSSS SO MUCH! My job is Saved!!!!

Open Source Forum > Pay Forums like Expert Exchange Thanks swewie too!

 

No problem, glad it worked for you.

P.S. NBR > EE

 

Jeepers Stewie...

Great stuff and a rep for you.

 

Man!! Great Job. excellent ! greetings from Hungary !!

 

Wow, Stewie. That's pretty great stuff

 

Entirely agree. EE has to be one of the websites I dislike the most, simply because it shows up in Google results with a promising-looking question in the title, then when you click on it you get no help whatsoever. Darn capitalist experts more concerned with exploiting people for profit than helping fellow technological comrades.

I'd bookmark it - but have no PC without a CD drive.

 

Agreed, that actually happened to me after trying to figure out how people got their old Pavilion 8660c's from locking up. Turns out they chucked the modem/sound combo card [remember those wretched things?] + added an dedicated graphics card to deactivate a portion of the problematic 810e chipset. Anyway, I ended up clicking on their link, thinking that they had a solution to how to deactivate the onboard video. Nope, gotta pay up....

I'm utterly shocked that they can get away with that crap in today's world where most every major system manufacturer has their own community forums, not to mention sites like Notebook/Desktop Review.

 

Really interesting stuff! Bookmarking this up.

 

One way I did years ago was:
1) hook the target machine's hard drive to some other machine where you can install DOS on this drive
2) copy I386 of XP CD onto the drive
3) install the drive back to its machine
4) reboot into DOS
5) then directly install from the I386 dir

Note: you may want to enable smartdrv in the DOS bootup setup, otherwise, copying the files would be very very slow~

 

I tried this method using a hard drive that i put in an external enclosure, the program ran, it quit rather quickly on its own, however when i put the drive into the laptop it just had a blinking cursor, nothing else, i know the laptop and the hard drive both work. Has this happened to anyone else?

 

It works fine with the MSDN version of Windows XP with SP3.

I've been having troubles with windows install cd that are modified with nlite with the winnt32.exe stripped so there's no way to run setup. And copying the file from a complete cd does not work either, I wish there could be a workaround for this, because there are really good optimized versions that run better than the original.

But right now the original install no problems at all.