Tech-Recipes - Latest Comments in Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

sparkyuiop — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 17:39:15 -0000

That was funky watching it install from the hard drive! I just wonder how many people chose to format the hard disk during XP Setup! I didn't in case you were wondering, I left the file system intact and it installed fine. Well that is to say everything barring the trackpad and mouse buttons. Also the style loaded in classic mode. Still sure that can be done easily enough. I didn't copy the i386 with the 'xcopy' command so it's either that or the pad is shaggered!
Another point worth mentioning is to make sure that your mobo has 2 IDE controllers, mine did not and 3.5 - 2.5 IDE adapters come fitted with only one drive connector. Still, booted the sprog off Moshi-Monsters and cannabalized his to finish the job!
Thank's for the good info, although this is elsewhere almost word for word so don't know if your origional authour or not. At least you can spell though, unlike I!
Cheers.

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

capotts0710 — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 23:21:45 -0000

when doing the install xp halts and says missing file asms and the file is not on the hard drive

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Frank — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 16:33:48 -0000

I'm a third person with the same problem.

i386 copied ok but running Winnt prompts the setup to copy some files to disk then reboot. After reboot, all that's displayed is :Operating System Missing", the Setup GUI does not load.

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

kkk — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 08:37:31 -0000

No it's not.
i have exactly the same error.

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

William_Wilson — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 04:59:19 -0000

Such an error usually results from an error in copying the i386 folder. If your cd is a legitimate copy just try copying it again, if not, you possibly downloaded a bad copy :p

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:58:30 -0000

Hello William, it goes all well, installation of dos 7.10, booting it from the laptop and executing smartdrv and winnt, but after all windows files get copied and restarts, it doesn't boot anymore i get the message:

NTLDR missing

Press any key

what could be the problem?

Thanks

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

William_Wilson — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 09:22:11 -0000

Sometimes i forget what i should explain and what i can assume...
If you are REALLY DOS illiterate you can load back into windows after installing DOS and merely use the laptop drive as a secondary drive and copy the I386 folder that way onto your laptop drive. This requires a few extra restarts, but could save time for those not familiar with DOS.

Otherwise the adventurous or semi-informed would be well off doing it how 'gadget' described.

-William. § (marvin_gohan)

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Sat, 25 Feb 2006 13:39:37 -0000

This worked GREAT. I would only add that for people who are not command line literate the best thing to do would be make a directory on "C" drive (C:"MD I386") change to the CD Drive (C:"D:") and use the xcopy command so you also get the directories. (D:"XCOPY I386 C:I386")

Will be happy to help anyone anyway I can as well. I think this should solve a couple of issues some of you are having.

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 11:06:15 -0000

im having this problem too and i would like no know how exactly to you copy the i386 folder to the hard drive, any help would be appreciated, thanks

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

William_Wilson — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 03:30:04 -0000

*Author of Above

It is a complicated issue, which wsa sorted out through e-mail, but to anyone with the same issue, the drive must be a primary drive, and dos needs to be installed on the drive, simply copying files to a drive 'can' work in some instances, but in most cases the hard drive does not know that these files are an operating system, even though command.com is in the root of th drive.
In many cases copying files to a drive through external means can write over the boot sector reserved for such files as windows boot.ini, etc, and result in these errors, as the drive has been modified by windows to be logical as a secondary hard drive, which is why i suggest the adapter and connecting it to IDE channel 1, and the desktop computer will most definately assume it to be primary, as it should be the only hard drive attatched.
Just keep in mind having an OS installed and knowing the device is to boot, does not mean that your bios and/or harddrive knows this.
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 13:29:28 -0000

Here are the errors that I am receiving when trying to load DOS off of the hdd:
1. “Remove disks or other media
Press any key to restart

2. “Non-System disk or disk error
replace and strike any key when ready”

If I hit a key then it just goes between the two. I have put DOS onto a 3.5 (a 7.1 DOS setup I found) and it puts these files on the disk:

AUTOEXEC.BAT
COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS

Those are all of the files on the floppy and when I boot to that with the floppy DOS comes up and everything and works great. So I put these files in the root dir of the HDD and it still wont boot from the hdd. Those are the only files that I put on there just to test it. Also on my desktop PC I have the option to boot from USB-HDD and so I tried that with the USB (the 2.5” laptop hdd) hooked up and I get the same error’s on my desktop my desktop PC as I do on the laptop. Is there something that I am doing wrong here? Is there a way that you could show me the file tree of yours just to compare (of course you wouldn’t need to include all files of the I386 folder). If you have any other ideas please let me know. It’s greatly appreciated. Thanks!

-haryy

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

William_Wilson — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:31:28 -0000

*author of above

if your laptop has a floppy drive, this recipe may be a little too basic for you, you can get the 6 installation floppies for XP or XP pro, i believe they are available from the MS site, but if not i have a copy, which should work w/ any legit cd key. For more info leave a msg or e-mail william_a_wilson@hotmail.com

Thanks for the questions

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

William_Wilson — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 07:25:11 -0000

*author of above

partitions may be possible, but they can cause issues with most progs. There are a few Linux based partitioning tools that may be ok, but for the most part windows, especially XP and progs such as partition magic. When running in wnidows and the laptop drive connected as well and not on it's own, these programs assume the drive is a storage drive, even if you make the settings for a boot drive, it will be made ntfs, and thus DOS cannot run on it. There are many drivers for reading ntfs from DOS but none that allow DOS to run on ntfs that i know of.
I hope this answers your question.

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Sep 2005 13:30:17 -0000

Why not create a partition and store the setup on d: ?

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Arjen — Thu, 07 Jul 2005 00:19:47 -0000

Problem:

After the first reboot (after copying files to the destination drive) my laptop doesn't seem to have a bootsystem on the destination drive. My laptop won't restart without the win98-bootfloppy I was told to remove from the drive.

Could anyone tell me what's wrong?

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Sun, 22 May 2005 06:22:35 -0000

Okay ignore the above I figured it out

Re: Harddrive Windows XP installation – no floppy/CD drive

Anonymous — Sat, 21 May 2005 12:14:34 -0000

Where can I download dos 7.1 from? and how do I install it? would formating the laptop hd and dumping a 7.1 bootdisk work?