put XP on external firewire disk

[D L]

I have an external firewire harddisk attached to a laptop
that is needed to be accessible from command prompt,
before full windows is loaded. I would like to create a
boot floppy/CD that does not depend on any hidden or
system files on the laptop.

The laptop will be used for OS (e.g. windows server 2003)
and software testing and will therefore be rebuilt from
time to time.

I have got the SP1 boot floppies from MS download, I think
all I am missing is a loadable OHCI firewire hard disk
driver, then I can proceed with XP install there.

I appreciate your help to locate a suitable driver, or
show me a different way to achieve my objectives without
having to buy another computer.

I would also like to understand the XP boot process and
where things are identical or different from previous OS,
9x series, ME, and Win2K. I am unsure to what extent
things said in knowledgebase articles for other OS (e.g.
boot.ini) apply to XP.

Thanks for helpful comments and tips.

David
24 July

[Edward W. Thompson]

I am not sure I completely understand your intentions. If you want to be
able to boot to WINXP from a firewire drive I am afraid the BIOS will not
allow this. If you simply want to be able to boot to DOS there are/is DOS
firewire drivers so you can construct a DOS boot floppy disk which will
allow you to access the firewire drive from a "command prompt".


"D L" > wrote in message
...
> I have an external firewire harddisk attached to a laptop
> that is needed to be accessible from command prompt,
> before full windows is loaded. I would like to create a
> boot floppy/CD that does not depend on any hidden or
> system files on the laptop.
>
> The laptop will be used for OS (e.g. windows server 2003)
> and software testing and will therefore be rebuilt from
> time to time.
>
> I have got the SP1 boot floppies from MS download, I think
> all I am missing is a loadable OHCI firewire hard disk
> driver, then I can proceed with XP install there.
>
> I appreciate your help to locate a suitable driver, or
> show me a different way to achieve my objectives without
> having to buy another computer.
>
> I would also like to understand the XP boot process and
> where things are identical or different from previous OS,
> 9x series, ME, and Win2K. I am unsure to what extent
> things said in knowledgebase articles for other OS (e.g.
> boot.ini) apply to XP.
>
> Thanks for helpful comments and tips.
>
> David
> 24 July