UPDATE: WinXP Home Edition HDD to Another PC

Hi,

I have installed WinXP Home Edition on several of my computers without
any issues. However, I have not been able to install it on a Global brand
desktop. I have tried different schemes, install on a "blank" HDD (hard disk
drive), replace/overwrite Win98, etc. Note: I changed the boot sequence to
CD rom first when using a "blank" HDD. The problem occurs after files are
transferred to the HDD, then a reboot occurs. An endless cycle of rebooting
or a shutdown happens.

Note: My desktop computers have HDD drawers (I installed).

What would happen if I install WinXP on another PC (I will not "activate"
yet), remove the drawer/HDD and install it in the Global PC?

In other words, would WinXP complain or refuse to bootup?

Thank You in advance, John

There is yet another way to do this.

Ingredients:

Working hard drive with two partitions.
Floppy drive with MSDOS on it (sys A: in Windows 98)
Technician computer, to prepare the hard drive.

Procedu

1) Create two FAT32 partitions. C: should be the first partition
on the disk, in terms of MBR primary partition entries. If you
were to swap the order, the installed OS appears on D: . Ask
me how I discovered this :-(

+--------------------------+--------------------------------------------+
| FAT32 C: | copy of CD i386 folder, on FAT32 partition |
+--------------------------+--------------------------------------------+

2) Create a MSDOS floppy on the Win98 technician computer.
I think that's "sys A:" or so. it's OK if you don't have Win98 computer
any more, as long as you have an MSDOS boot floppy that gives the
old A: prompt. If desperate, you can get a boot floppy of bootdisk.com
or similar.

3) Set boot order to floppy, then hard drive, on the target computer.
Bring the hard drive over from the technician computer, with the
5000+ file i386 folder stored on the second partition. You copy
the i386 folder, off the installer CD, to fill the second partition.
I made my second partition about 1GB in size.

4) Boot the MSDOS floppy. CD to D:\i386. You will notice two setup
programs. One is suited to this installation, the other is not.
Try them, until the installation window appears.

5) I think on the reboot, you remove the MSDOS floppy, as by that time,
the necessary contents of i386 have been copied over to C:, the boot flag
has been set on the first partition, the MBR boot code loaded and so on.
The installation will then continue, referencing D: as the source of
any additional files.

The purpose of that procedure, is to avoid the usage of a CD at all.
The disadvantage of the approach, is C: ends up as FAT32. While
you can use the "convert" command to convert FAT32 to NTFS, the
conversion block size is too small for efficient operation. There's
probably a few more steps you could throw in, to fix that. But this
post is crazy enough as it is :-)

I installed the WinXP on my current computer, using the above method.
(I did it "just for fun".) On my MSDOS floppy, I included smartdrv as
a caching software. The time taken to research smartdrv, test it, I
could have finished the install. Without smartdrv, the partition to partition
file copying, happens at a rate of one file per second. Just walk away
and check back every once in a while, to see how it's going. It'll probably
take a couple hours, if you don't have smartdrv loaded.

There are other floppy sets you can use for this job, but when
I tried one of them, it just didn't work. So I tried the
MSDOS bootstrap procedure instead. And I eventually got
it to work.

HTH,
Paul

Hi Paul,

UPDATE:

I used a 10G HDD and partitioned it with about 1G for D:.

Using a HDD docking (USB) station in another PC, I copied "i386" folder
from the WinXP's OS CD rom to that partition (D in the 10G IDE HDD connected
to the docking station. Afterwards, I removed the HDD and placed it in the
drawer and put it in the Global PC.

After using a floppy boot disk in A:, I entered "i386" directory/folder
and launched "WINNT" (I tried some others first). This started the
installation process. Everything started fine and it took a long time
to transfer system files between the two partitions due to the lateral
head movements. I removed the bootable floppy (prompted to do so).
It looked like this method was going to work, but here we go again,
the rebooting started again and again, then shut down.

In every failure there is a lesson learned, and I learned this problem has
nothing to do with the CD rom drive. I also learned a method to install WinXP
on a laptop's HDD if the laptop has a defective DVD/CD drive.

Thanks again for your technique, John

wrote in message ...
Hi,
Hi Paul,
UPDATE:
I used a 10G HDD and partitioned it with about 1G for D:.

Just 9 Gb partitioned for XP sp3 OS
Need a good 60 Gb or more

Using a HDD docking (USB) station in another PC, I copied "i386" folder
from the WinXP's OS CD rom to that partition (D in the 10G IDE HDD connected
to the docking station. Afterwards, I removed the HDD and placed it in the
drawer and put it in the Global PC.
After using a floppy boot disk in A:, I entered "i386" directory/folder
and launched "WINNT" (I tried some others first). This started the
installation process. Everything started fine and it took a long time
to transfer system files between the two partitions due to the lateral
head movements. I removed the bootable floppy (prompted to do so).
It looked like this method was going to work, but here we go again,
the rebooting started again and again, then shut down.
In every failure there is a lesson learned, and I learned this problem has
nothing to do with the CD rom drive. I also learned a method to install WinXP
on a laptop's HDD if the laptop has a defective DVD/CD drive.

You have to unplug the laptop's
Defective DVD/CD drive first
In BOS setup F2 for HP

Thanks again for your technique, John

Paul
Knows how unplug the laptop's drive
Work with him he a good
Tech....

On Sat, 08 Mar 2014 13:51:32 -0500, wrote:



The purpose of that procedure, is to avoid the usage of a CD at all.
The disadvantage of the approach, is C: ends up as FAT32. While
you can use the "convert" command to convert FAT32 to NTFS, the
conversion block size is too small for efficient operation. There's
probably a few more steps you could throw in, to fix that. But this
post is crazy enough as it is :-)

I installed the WinXP on my current computer, using the above method.
(I did it "just for fun".) On my MSDOS floppy, I included smartdrv as
a caching software. The time taken to research smartdrv, test it, I
could have finished the install. Without smartdrv, the partition to partition
file copying, happens at a rate of one file per second. Just walk away
and check back every once in a while, to see how it's going. It'll probably
take a couple hours, if you don't have smartdrv loaded.

There are other floppy sets you can use for this job, but when
I tried one of them, it just didn't work. So I tried the
MSDOS bootstrap procedure instead. And I eventually got
it to work.

HTH,
Paul

Hi Paul,

UPDATE:

I used a 10G HDD and partitioned it with about 1G for D:.

Using a HDD docking (USB) station in another PC, I copied "i386" folder
from the WinXP's OS CD rom to that partition (D in the 10G IDE HDD connected
to the docking station. Afterwards, I removed the HDD and placed it in the
drawer and put it in the Global PC.

After using a floppy boot disk in A:, I entered "i386" directory/folder
and launched "WINNT" (I tried some others first). This started the
installation process. Everything started fine and it took a long time
to transfer system files between the two partitions due to the lateral
head movements. I removed the bootable floppy (prompted to do so).
It looked like this method was going to work, but here we go again,
the rebooting started again and again, then shut down.

In every failure there is a lesson learned, and I learned this problem has
nothing to do with the CD rom drive. I also learned a method to install WinXP
on a laptop's HDD if the laptop has a defective DVD/CD drive.

Thanks again for your technique, John






You installed it the same way as I did, except I had the CD copy of the
install files on the SAME partition (C. It worked fine for me. I
also installed it to a 10G drive, but it's now been moved to a larger
drive, and I have since moved the install files to partition (D, since
I made C: a small partition, only for the OS and for programs, while D:
is for work and storage. I could probably just delete them, because I
have them on a flash drive, but I suppose as soon as I did, I'd need
some driver or something.