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...

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Hi,

Have set Notebook disk C as primary active partition, FAT32 formatted it, installed DOS7.1, copied winXP to C:\i386, but after the first restart during XP installation, get the awful "Non-system disk or disk error - Plz insert DOS diskette...". So I guess XP installation interrupts there. Guess I must have missed somehing in the process. Any help plz?? Thanx in advance.

does your laptop have a floppy drive? a faulty one can cause this order, enter your bios and make sure that floppy is not in the boot order.
The other cause of this, is the same as the ntdlr error. A file in the XP bootloader, often io.sys has been corrupted or missed entirely. Usually this occurs when the disc is a copy, thus an improper boot disc installs files incorrectly.

Check that your partition is set to active, and primary.

Can someone help? I'm not sure what I'm missing...

Target system is a Motorola MW-520 w/10GB hdd & 700MHz PIII. Desired OS is Win2k.

I removed the hdd from the target system & attached via USB-to-IDE to my laptop. The hdd was partitioned & formatted as such using QTParted:
Partition 1 - Primary, approx 8.7GB, FAT32, C:\
Partition 2 - Primary, approx 650MB, FAT32, D:\

I386 folder was copied from Win2k install disc to D:\ (partition 2). Target hdd was then replaced in target system. After doing so, I realized that I forgot to make partition 1 active.

Win98SE bootdisk was used to start target system. On startup, I used fdisk to make partition 1 active. Then smartdrv.exe was run, followed by D:\I386\winnt.exe. All temporary install files are successfully copied to C:\ (partition 1).

After files are copied, Windows indicates that the floppy needs to be removed & the system rebooted for install to continue. After reboot, I get a blank screen staring at me with a lone flashing cursor in the upper left corner. I let the computer sit like this for just over 10 minutes. No prompt, no activity, no nothing.

Anyone have any ideas? Does the system need to sit longer after the first reboot?

perfect! lots of help! thanks for sharing.
kudos to Sir William Wilson.

hi everyone, i was just following the instructions on this web site regarding installing xp on a lap top with no cd or floopy drive.

i did everything up to the step that requires to put the dos 7.1 on the desk top and intaling it on the laptop hard drive, however during the process there is a message that says "remove disks or other media" and "reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a any key"


guys i don't know what i am doing wrong, in fact i may have the wrong dos 7.1 but i am not sure. I burned the MS-Dos 7.10 CD full instalation and did not work and i also burned MS-DOS 7.10 boot disk that did not work either. which one do i need anyway, and how do i go about burning them(i could have made a mistake there) and finally i put the boot sequence cd drive first and hard drive next.

pelase help


thank you everyone

barro

RE installing XP on one laptop hard drive, then moving that drive to another laptop: Good plan. XP will accomodate to the new laptop. Go for it! You may need access to a cd rom eventually for drivers or file, but xp should boot up fine and access your usb cdrom

To address the issue of bootable CD burning, there is a right way and wrong way to burn the ISO file to cd. If you just burn the file to disk, it is just like any other file you may want to archive or have on CD. You must use a program like ISORecorder (with XP), DeepBurner (for any Win32), Nero, etc to use the ISO file as an image, placing that image on the disk, so that it has the boot sections in the proper place and format, can boot as disk A: or whatever, then proceed to using the files that should have been expanded onto the CD.

For those getting the "Missing Operating System" or "No Operating System" like me, I went into the Bios and noticed that under Hard Drive, it had [none] so I changed it to have a HD. I don't know if when you take out the HD and put it back in again that it doesn't autodetect the HD or what. But after this, I was able to load into DOS and begin installation of XP. This guide worked perfectly for me, other than this one problem I ran into. I have Fujitsu Lifebook b2630.

some OS may automatically remove hdds from the bios list once they have been removed. A low battery on your motherboard is likely to blame for it not being re-added, but a good solution.

Just like to say thanks for this post, complete life saver! Even got laid for it!