Install Windows XP without floppy or cd drives

I will try to be as detailed as possible, including pictures as i go.
(My laptop is a Dell Latitude CSx, but this will work for any make or model with the same issue)

*Please be...

Click here to read the entire tutorial

Hi all,
I'm attempting to install Windows 2000 Professional using this tutorial on a pos (point of sale, a type of computer with the screen integrated, usually used for shop tills, stock keeping etc...) Posiflex with a TP6000 Motherboard, 512 Mb Ram, Celeron 1.2Ghz Processor, Samsung 80Gb Hard drive with 3 partitions all Fat32.C:\ partition is 16Gb.
I have got as far as the Networking Settings stage, whether Typical Settings Or Custom Settings is selected. Whichever option is chosen, even choosing Custom Settings and deselecting the 3 options like Tcp/ip etc..., all result in the progress bar showing "Completing configuration of distributed transaction coordinator..." and then the screen goes black followed by the Pc restarting itself to go through the whole F6 if you need to install additional drivers bit and on to the point where it restarts itself again.
I hope I have explained my problem in an understandable way.
Any help will be much appreciated.Thanks to all the info/advice posted that have enabled me to get even this far.

Regards, plswrk

Hi Again,
managed to finish installing Windows 2000, and running fine
William Wilson came up with the solutions in previous posts that worked for me.Just made a couple of changes to these two bits of advice for my setup:

1. William_Wilson on 05-11-2007, 01:50 PM

you could try a modification to the install, as i have come to like better:
-format the drive, and partition it with a small 500mb parition on the front of the drive. copy the i386 folder to it and then install dos to it as well. This will keep the install folders separate from the actual installation which will be on D:\ now.
This method also allows you to re-install without removing your drive again.

As I wanted to be very sure that Win2K would fit I made my partition 845mb.


2. Baked_Bean
When you copy the i386 folder use this DOS command ......
xcopy d:\i386 c:\i386 /s/e
where d:\ is the cdrom drive and c:\ is the hdd. The switches at the end will ensure that ALL folders will be copied, regardless.

Here, I thought I'd see if this would work with the command prompt from within XP Professional, rather than dos 7.1 (I'm very much a dos newbie), and it did, fantastic!


Thank you very much William

I was leafing through the different forums, and I wonder if this procedure would work for a toshiba portege 3500? This model is a tablet pc without a cd-rom drive nor a floppy drive.

will this work on the toshiba 3500 tablet pc

There is no reason why it wouldn't work, just check the drive type: IDE or SATA. The adapter is only needed for IDE drives since the pin count is different on the 2 varieties of these hard drives, while the SATA type use the exact same connectors in both models. As long as there is a copy of the OS on the drive and DOS can boot, it will work for any laptop.

On looking up the drive type, it does appear that the toshiba 3500 tablet uses an ATA-100 type hard drive and this should be very easy to setup, just make sure you are using a desktop with SATA connectors.

dear William ....... I read several times you post .... but , but only one question : re-instal without cd or floppy ??? what do you need ??? usb support .... some people on the site seid : impossible ...well now I am confuged.... sorry you did well but ??? please tell me how ?? thx

Have you read the tutorial these comments are on? For an IDE laptop drive you need a converter, described and photographed in the tutorial, and for an ATA laptop drive you can use any SATA capable desktop computer.
If your laptop supports booting from a usb device (this can be determined in the boot order in your BIOS) then you can use a thumb drive or usb CD drive, otherwise removing the hard drive and installing the OS/files outlined in the tutorial is about the easiest way.

Very good tutorial, it saved the day. Thank you very much

this what i did

put laptop hhd into desktop pc
install dos
change back to desktop pc and put in smart.drv and i386 files in laptop hhd
moved laptop hhd back into laptop
installed windows
reboot

!!!!@@@@ I GET THIS ERROR! @@@@!!!!

NTLDR IS MISSING! <----- WTF!!!

HOW DO I RESOLVE THIS? THIS IS A BRAND NEW XP PRO CD!!!

it is a dell latitude c400