How do I go about this. Installing Win XP via Setup boot disk. I know I insert the floppy and let it read it and then keep switching floppies unitl all olf them are read but is there any more that I have to do. I know that its then going to allow me to install from CD. But what else is there to it, that I am missing?
Win XP Setup Boot Disk
- Thread starter johnny
- Start date
For installing XP with a set of seup floppies you first have to prepare those and boot from the first of the set when you are not able to set the optical drive as the boot device. That will see cd rom drivers loaded as part os the initial setup process. If you can boot from the XP disk(full install version) the installer will run on it's own.
A brief guide on using the floppy install including screen shots can be seen at http://www.networkcert.net/xp/install.htm#fromfloppy
The instructions simply point out that once you have been prompted for each floppy and the initial process is loaded into ram you then press the enter setup now option to indicate which optical drive the disk is in and see the installer started up there. The XP installer can then be used for creating a new primary if that hasn't already been done with a drive partitioning tool.
The MS page for downloading the files for creating the 6 floppies needed is seen at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 or at http://www.download.com/Windows-XP-...Floppy-Boot-Install/3000-2114_4-10728296.html
The instructions simply point out that once you have been prompted for each floppy and the initial process is loaded into ram you then press the enter setup now option to indicate which optical drive the disk is in and see the installer started up there. The XP installer can then be used for creating a new primary if that hasn't already been done with a drive partitioning tool.
The MS page for downloading the files for creating the 6 floppies needed is seen at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310994 or at http://www.download.com/Windows-XP-...Floppy-Boot-Install/3000-2114_4-10728296.html
I put the floppy in my desktop just to try it out, and when it boots up it checks for cd boot and find nothing then it checks for floppy boot and finds the first floppy. It says ok and then it says "Disk I/O Error". What does this error mean?
And thanks for that first site, its one of the best responses.
And thanks for that first site, its one of the best responses.
By mistake you didnt put the wrong 1st floppy in?
When tried here with all 4 floppies and even a separate XP boot floppy I kept running into all kinds of snags. The problem is trying to energize the XP installer like you would if booting from the cd. With the older Fat based versions dos was a common tool while once you get into 2000 and XP it can get fussy at times.
Are you trying this out on an old flat top antique?
where you can't set the cd rom option as first in the boot order? On that old of a system you may not have enough to even see XP installed if less then 128mb of memory and pre P II cpu. The floppy method can be annoying as the method being used. Far easier when you can boot from the installation disk.
Are you trying this out on an old flat top antique?
where you can't set the cd rom option as first in the boot order? On that old of a system you may not have enough to even see XP installed if less then 128mb of memory and pre P II cpu. The floppy method can be annoying as the method being used. Far easier when you can boot from the installation disk.The computer is was buit in summer of 2001. When it was built it was intentionally designed for Windows 2000. It was a custom built machine, that my cousins brother in-law built for her. What happened was the version on 2000 was one of the first copies released and it was unstable, so they downgraded to 98 SE.
About a year ago her husband and best friend were playing around with the computer and they wanted to put 1gb of ram in it, which the max is 512, as well as install a second hard drive and they somehow fried the hard. We couldnt figure out the problem, like I didnt think of it since windows would only boot up in safe mode. So he took it to this tech friend of his brothers and he installed a new hdd and windows 98.
When the computer was built it was, and still is runnign a PIII, and it had 128 MB RAM which we then installed 256 X 2 = 512MB.
About a year ago her husband and best friend were playing around with the computer and they wanted to put 1gb of ram in it, which the max is 512, as well as install a second hard drive and they somehow fried the hard. We couldnt figure out the problem, like I didnt think of it since windows would only boot up in safe mode. So he took it to this tech friend of his brothers and he installed a new hdd and windows 98.
When the computer was built it was, and still is runnign a PIII, and it had 128 MB RAM which we then installed 256 X 2 = 512MB.
Since its a PIII its got to have somewhere in the bios to set your boot order to the cd-rom. Or at the bottom of the bios screen say something like Press --- Key to boot to CD
Being that new over some old I286 flat top model you should see the boot order section in the bios setup itself. By default many older systems see floppy, hard drive, cd rom, and ??? last like lan or card reader. You simply set the cd rom as first with hard drive as second and disable the remaining.
Or if there's a boot device menu found with an F key assigned like DEL is generally for entering the bios you can set the hard drive as first and simply press the assigned F key to boot from the installation disk. That saves going back and forth into the bios as well as eliminating the awkward floppy method.
Or if there's a boot device menu found with an F key assigned like DEL is generally for entering the bios you can set the hard drive as first and simply press the assigned F key to boot from the installation disk. That saves going back and forth into the bios as well as eliminating the awkward floppy method.
I'm going to try that PC eye and see what happens. I actually spoke to a guy in one of my classes and he said he believes he has a copy of Windows 98, and he said I could borrow it if he finds it. So I'm going to be getting the disks on Monday aftenoon and I'm gonna take it from there and try XP Pro and 98. Hopefully something will work, my cousins said if it doesn't then they are going to just buy a new computer like a refurbished one or even a cheap new one.
With 98 on you can easily run the setup for the upgrade to XP fast enough but see that go onto a Fat32 primary rather then the NTFS native to XP. One article seen some time back explained how to convert Fat32 to the NTFS file system while still preferring the native by choice.
Drivers for XP will be another item once installed to consider. On many old system geared for 98 or NT XP drivers were never released. Old 98 prebuilds would see only 64mb of memory at times! XP will need 128mb to start and a cpu starting at 900mhz just for beginners. That will still be a slow boat!
Drivers for XP will be another item once installed to consider. On many old system geared for 98 or NT XP drivers were never released. Old 98 prebuilds would see only 64mb of memory at times! XP will need 128mb to start and a cpu starting at 900mhz just for beginners. That will still be a slow boat!
I have a lot of faith in old realiable. Like my old desktop was running XP Pro with a AMD K6 II @ 367Mhz and 192MB RAM, at one point it was running it with 64MB RAM.
The other thing that probably screwed up the system was my cousins husband said to convert it to NTFS from FAT, cause he said that he remembers seeing it as that and to push it to change to it, when doing the upgrade 2k.
The other thing that probably screwed up the system was my cousins husband said to convert it to NTFS from FAT, cause he said that he remembers seeing it as that and to push it to change to it, when doing the upgrade 2k.
I had the link on that recently when a friend simply upgraded an old 98 drive he threw into a new build and installed XP right away without thinking. He ran XP on the old Fat32 primary for about 2yrs. then. Lately when the drive quit the larger drive used for storage then saw a clean install of XP with NTFS now being run.
There I simply was able to first use GParted and the original XP disk by booting from those. XP without anyything installed could barely run on 64mb of memory for just the basics as you found out. Once you installed a few things... oops! 128mb or more then.
There I simply was able to first use GParted and the original XP disk by booting from those. XP without anyything installed could barely run on 64mb of memory for just the basics as you found out. Once you installed a few things... oops! 128mb or more then.
Just a quick update.
I got a win98 recovery disk from a guy in my personal finance class, ir did nothing. I used the XP Pro boot disk, they did nothing. Prior to this we had a conversation saying if I could get it up and running then fine, if not they are going to go and get a new one tomorrow from this place I sent them. It wouldn't read my cd or my floppy. So I got pissed and I went into the BIOS to check everything. There was no optionfor Advanced CMOS or anything so I just went through evey option and found the boot sequence under BIOS setup. Thats where it was set to boot only from C drive. Which I don't understand why the tech who installed the new hdd and the clean install of win98 would set it to boot only from C drive. So I set it to boot from A>D>C, and then it picked up my disk and I removed the semi install of win2k and whatever was left of win98.
Windows installed installed smoothly and is running great. I actually found out that there was 8GB hard drive insead of 4GB, I know its not a lot of space but its better then installing windows on a 4GB hdd. So now the computer runs fine.
They are still planning on getting a new desktop. Basically they said just to try to get it up and going, at least temporarily, and they will pick up a new system in a bit.
So thanks everyone for you input I really appreciate it.
I got a win98 recovery disk from a guy in my personal finance class, ir did nothing. I used the XP Pro boot disk, they did nothing. Prior to this we had a conversation saying if I could get it up and running then fine, if not they are going to go and get a new one tomorrow from this place I sent them. It wouldn't read my cd or my floppy. So I got pissed and I went into the BIOS to check everything. There was no optionfor Advanced CMOS or anything so I just went through evey option and found the boot sequence under BIOS setup. Thats where it was set to boot only from C drive. Which I don't understand why the tech who installed the new hdd and the clean install of win98 would set it to boot only from C drive. So I set it to boot from A>D>C, and then it picked up my disk and I removed the semi install of win2k and whatever was left of win98.
Windows installed installed smoothly and is running great. I actually found out that there was 8GB hard drive insead of 4GB, I know its not a lot of space but its better then installing windows on a 4GB hdd. So now the computer runs fine.
They are still planning on getting a new desktop. Basically they said just to try to get it up and going, at least temporarily, and they will pick up a new system in a bit.
So thanks everyone for you input I really appreciate it.
The method of setting only one boot device once a system is OSed is simple. That keeps the boot time down since you are only needing the hard drive.
For newer boards the option of a separate boot device menu leaving the hard drive set as default and even only device in the bios boot order saves time when installing Windows by simply bringing that up to choose the optical drive from the list of drives installed. Once the system restarts for the first time the there's no need to go into the bios to change the boot order like previously done for booting up from the installation disk.
For newer boards the option of a separate boot device menu leaving the hard drive set as default and even only device in the bios boot order saves time when installing Windows by simply bringing that up to choose the optical drive from the list of drives installed. Once the system restarts for the first time the there's no need to go into the bios to change the boot order like previously done for booting up from the installation disk.
With XP you can also speed up the process by editing the time for display generally 30 seconds in the boot.ini file there. You change that to as low as 2 seconds.
Dual booting, multi booting, and now simply running two stand alone OSs I simplly set the default hard drive as the single device and press the F8 key to boot into the other by then selecting the drive it's on. No more going back and forth into the bios to reset the boot order to either load the other version or when going to install the OS there.
Dual booting, multi booting, and now simply running two stand alone OSs I simplly set the default hard drive as the single device and press the F8 key to boot into the other by then selecting the drive it's on. No more going back and forth into the bios to reset the boot order to either load the other version or when going to install the OS there.