UK420 > Hypothetical Question

Boojum

Aug 6 2005, 02:25 PM

Suppose one had a shitty old HDD with winxp, together with a working .bin of winxp pro, and a virtual CD rom via daemon tools, but no CD ROM or floppy disk. Would it be possible to install winxp on a second HDD from the first, so that the first can then be removed & winxp booted from the new one. Cos I've hypothetically done it, but when I unplug the old HDD it won't boot from the new one, it'll only load windows from the new HDD if it boots from the old one

What's missing from the new HDD that prevents it from booting ? (HDD is partitioned & formatted as a single HDD, not a slave, I managed to sort that with the CD utility before my CD ROM finally died).

Probably being very dim, I know my way round windoze once it's there, but I know feck all about the technicalities - does it have summat to do with an autoexec file or something like that - I dimly recall fiddling with those in the past when installing previous windoze versions, but it's too long ago

bartman

Aug 6 2005, 02:49 PM

QUOTE(Boojum @ Aug 6 2005, 03:25 PM)

Suppose one had a shitty old HDD with winxp, together with a working .bin of winxp pro, and a virtual CD rom via daemon tools, but no CD ROM or floppy disk. Would it be possible to install winxp on a second HDD from the first, so that the first can then be removed & winxp booted from the new one. Cos I've hypothetically done it, but when I unplug the old HDD it won't boot from the new one, it'll only load windows from the new HDD if it boots from the old one

What's missing from the new HDD that prevents it from booting ? (HDD is partitioned & formatted as a single HDD, not a slave, I managed to sort that with the CD utility before my CD ROM finally died).

Probably being very dim, I know my way round windoze once it's there, but I know feck all about the technicalities - does it have summat to do with an autoexec file or something like that - I dimly recall fiddling with those in the past when installing previous windoze versions, but it's too long ago

[right][snapback]401438[/snapback][/right]

hi booj
in dos mode i think you can predetermine the drive to boot up first, second and so on.
way out of my depth but i recall a mate kindly sorting mine out when this happened to me.
not an answer but hopefully a pointer.

bartman

hairy face

Aug 6 2005, 03:04 PM

QUOTE(Boojum @ Aug 6 2005, 03:25 PM)

does it have summat to do with an autoexec file or something like that

It's probably something to do with a file called boot.ini. Place it on the base directory of the C: drive of the disk you want to boot from. You might be able to copy it from the old drive.

Mine's got the following contents, which might do you:-

"
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Pro (C:)" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

"
If you use these settings, I think you'll need to have your new HD set as master (probably should be anyway).

Twelveways

Aug 6 2005, 03:57 PM

Ive had a smoke, so I may be way off but...

You can plug both drives in (you need to check the jumpers on the back of the drive to determine whether the slave is master or slave and primary or secondary) and set them both as primary master drives.

Boot up and choose to boot from the drive with windows already installed and use the .bin file to install windows on to the new drive.

Restart and boot from the new drive to check it works and copy all the stuff you want to keep.

Take out the old drive and reboot.

I did it this way and didnt have to touch the BIOS.

null

Aug 6 2005, 04:16 PM

copy contents of xp cd to drive 2 after formatting it. run setup from it. when you reboot choose that drive to install on. or you can have the copy of the cds contents on ur C: drive if u like. its totally not necessary to have a physical cd

null

Aug 6 2005, 04:17 PM

o i c you dont wanna keep ur old hd. erm.

Boojum

Aug 6 2005, 08:09 PM

Cheers for the responses. I've given up for now, it's done my head right in. I know I'm missing NTLDR from the new HDD, and that I can extract it from the CD from the command propt, but I don't have the CD, just a bin file, and don't seem to be able to boot to the command prompt anyway, so I'm sacking it for now & keeping running winxp from my old HDD, just using the second partition on the new one to download stuff. I'll try doing it properly once I've got a working CD rom and a copy of the CD.

Cheers for your time, though

hairy face

Aug 6 2005, 09:35 PM

Can you not just copy all the files from your old old hard disc's base directory on the C: drive to the new HD?