[übermetroid]

I have a laptop that I want to install win xp pro on.  A fresh install (format HD, ect...)

The problem is that the Laptop does not have a CD rom drive (I lost it actually, it was a quick switch one).

It does have USB, IRF,floppy drive and I have a LAN card for it (the quick remove kind).

Any ideas on how I can go about formatting and getting XP installed?

THX!  

[Lonestar]

Hmmm, formatting can be done without XP. However to install XP without a CDROM is not something i am familiar with. I know no other media format that would handle a Windows install besides a DVD.

[übermetroid]

There is no boot support software that will look at the LAN card and be able to find the XP cd on another PC on my home network?

[Lonestar]

Not that i know of, i dont usually go on networks in DOS and i only use networking when the OS is installed.

So i wouldnt be sure how you could do an install that isnt local.

[Flipside]

Networks + DOS = scary

http://www.mcp.be/ST/ExternalST/STUcdrom.htm

Something like that may be the only answer I'm afraid

[pyro-manic]

Get another CD drive? You could get one of those external usb drives - I dunno if they do straight CD-ROMs, but I know you can get CDRWs and DVD-RWs like that. Then take it back to the shop once you're done.

EDIT: Oops, Flipside had the same idea. Oh well.

[Liberator]

You probably want to do an install over a network.

Connect the computer another via ethernet
share the CD-ROM on the second computer and use it as a substitute.  This may or may not have issues with XPs registration.

[übermetroid]

Originally posted by Liberator
You probably want to do an install over a network.

Connect the computer another via ethernet
share the CD-ROM on the second computer and use it as a substitute.  This may or may not have issues with XPs registration.

Well thats what I want to do.  I am just wondering how I can do it after I formatt the Laptop HD and it does not know how to do anything...

[wojta]

Networks + DOS <> scary :devil:

It's quite easy to set up sharing in pure DOS. But It will not help. It is possible to install Win9x by this way. You can start setup.exe from Win2000/XP but it needs a local cdrom for the installation.
You can install Win98 at first and then upgrade to WinXP via network (it should work).

[Arc]

Originally posted by wojta
You can start setup.exe from Win2000/XP but it needs a local cdrom for the installation.

Actually 2k setup doesn't care where it installs from as long as it can find the \i386 directory, and you can install off a network share. I know this is done for unattended installs, but I see no reason why it shouldn't work for a normal install. I haven't tried the same with XP, but I wouldn't expect it to be different.

@ubermetroid: My first move would be to go for a dos bootdisk that can mount a network share of the cd and run the winnt.exe from the i386 directory.  Assuming that works, you can reformat the drive from inside XP's setup.

[ChronoReverse]

Well, if you have a copy of norton ghost, you could image the drive over the network.

This assumes that you've made an image of a clean winxp install though.

[Arc]

You'd need to image an XP installation that was on identical hardware though (well, mobo at least), otherwise the HALs wouldn't match and it'd never start. I had 2k in a removable drive, had to use it in a machine with a different mobo - it died.

[ChronoReverse]

There is a trick to doing a mobo swap without reinstalling winxp actually.
Pity I lost the link to it.

In any case, I forgot about that =/

[Arc]

You're supposed to be able to boot into safe mode and reinstall/update the HAL in device manager... or something. I couldn't get it to boot in any mode (didn't try using the recovery console though)
I'd really like that url if you ever come across it again.  

[Admiral LSD]

Originally posted by Arc
You'd need to image an XP installation that was on identical hardware though (well, mobo at least), otherwise the HALs wouldn't match and it'd never start. I had 2k in a removable drive, had to use it in a machine with a different mobo - it died.

That's not strictly true. MS have a tool designed expressly for that purpose (sysprep or something I think its called) that'll strip the install back to a bare minimum so you can image and install it cross multiple machines. It should work just as well here as well.

[Arc]

Even when using sysprep you still need keep identical the HAL, ACPI/non-ACPI and Mass storage controller.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;828287

... actually they've updated sysprep since the last time I used it. You don't need the same mass storage controller with the latest version (although the article apparently only applies to 2k): http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;216915

[übermetroid]

Originally posted by Arc

@ubermetroid: My first move would be to go for a dos bootdisk that can mount a network share of the cd and run the winnt.exe from the i386 directory.  Assuming that works, you can reformat the drive from inside XP's setup.

I did not realize that I could format inside the xp setup.  If that is the case then I should be able to just to a normal network install, right?  (the laptop gots 98 on it)

cool!

[Arc]

As long as you boot from something that doesn't rely on the HD while you're doing the install. If you use 98 to access the network share, it's all going to go wrong when you try and delete the partition 98's working from.

You'll need a dos bootdisk that can mount a network share, I'm afraid.

[Triple Ace]

How old is the system? New systems come with almost everything.

[JarC]

easiest would be to just copy the whole i386 folder over the lan to the laptop, while the lan is stil working, and start the setup after booting to dos...formatting is totally unnessecary to do fresh install, just do deltree /y C:\windows, and if it complains it can''t find the command or program, it''s in the WINDOWS\COMMAND folder so you might wanna copy it to a floppy first...

(unless you explicitly wanna do it the hard way...)