XP Installation from Hard Drive??

[bobmiller007]

Is there anyone out there that knows how to install Windows XP without booting from the XP installation CD?? I've (in the past) been able to copy the necessary files to install an os to the hard drive...then, install the os from there...That way...if you need to reinstall or need setup files...It's local on the hard drive....It also seems to install faster??
Thanks

[bailey]

I have not heard of anyone trying that out yet with xp.

try it and see what happens,

somehow I don't think it will work, because it sometimes has to do some things to the hard dr and won't be able to do that,

[Nuclear Krusader]

Hi there Bob and welcome to the PC Mech forums!

I haven't tried it also. It's way easier to boot from the CD. Besides, if the HD is not partitioned or formatted you will need to boot from the CD.

[reboot]

It can be done, fairly easily.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...NoWebContent=1

[crjdriver]

If your hd is fat32, you can do it without too much trouble. Copy the i386 folder to your hd, boot with a boot disk, change to the i386 folder you copied and type winnt. Setup will start. Note you must have smartdrv.exe on either your boot disk or copy it to your i386 folder. Prior to starting the install type smartdrv.exe and hit enter. Without smartdrive the install will take hours.
The last time I did it this way, it was 23 min from typing winnt to finished with the install.

[mairving]

You really don't need to do it like you did with Windows 9x. With them, every time you made the slightest change like changing the computer name (never have figured that one out), you had to have the disk. So copying it to your hd was a good idea. With NT/2K/XP, it is not really necessary since you no longer need to stick in the disk to update.

[bobmiller007]

Hey guys....Thanks alot for all of your ideas...I'm gonna just load from the cd....