In other words, How can I install XP (or Win2k) from the main hard disk without CD-Rom or USB or Floppy detection from BIOS?
I’m working with an OLD laptop, especifically a Gateway Solo 5300, and BIOS doesn’t even dare to recognize any peripheral at startup, and I don’t dare either to find a solution to make BIOS detect the CD-Rom (unless there’s an easy way).
I have:
– An IDE 2,5″ enclosure
– MS-DOS 7.1 (with smartdrv.exe), BartPe, and HP format disk utility
– Windows 2k, Fundamentals (FLP), and win XP CD’s.
– Other DOS-based utilities (DOS-to-USB, ntldrusb)
What I’ve done:
– Formatted the HDD, and then install MS-DOS with CD recognition. After installing it from the old laptop, I inserted the Win XP CD and started winnt.exe installation, but after copying files and rebooting it says the classic message “NTLDR is missing”. Even if I replace that file and the ntdetect.com and other possible “corruptible” files nothing happens (I went to http://tinyempire.com/notes/ntldrismissing.htm too).
– Making the hard drive bootable as a WinPe CD-Rom to install WinFLP (http://www.comphell.cz/?p=10) to HDD, but after first reboot everything shows blank.
– I tried to make two primary partitions, one with 1.5gb and the other with the rest. I found in the internet many tutorials to install XP from a USB drive, So I “simulated” the USB drive by copying all files required for USB to boot into the minor-sized partition, and having the other partition with the XP disk files so I could install it later without replacing any files from USB in the bigger partition after rebooting. But it stills shows blank or the missing ntldr message (depending on the used methods for USBs).
What I “think” it could be done:
– I’ve read there’s a way in Win98/ME by copying only the .cab files into the disk by making Windows installation automatic at first reboot, but that’s only with those OS’s. With win2k there’s a similar way as I heard, but nothing I could known really.
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So, that’s it… if there can give me a hand I would be really, really appreciated. And sorry for my poor english.
Thank you!
