Resolved the problem. Thanks for your help everyone. Ok, so I found a nice guide to install XP on a laptop that has no functional cd-rom drive. Basically, you copy the I386 folder onto the hard drive by some other means (in my case, an IDE to USB cable), and then use DOS to start the 16 bit installer (Winnt.exe). This all worked out fine, and I got the installer to run, installed the files, and then it says "Ms-DOS portion of the setup has completed. Please remove any floppies and reboot". I did that. I get this error: "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system32\hal.dll. Please re-install a copy of the above file." Why is it even looking for that file? The boot.ini after that 16 bit install points to C:\$win_nt$.~bt\bootsect.dat I tried chkdsk, fixboot, and mbr. What in the world is the problem?
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ that file is critical to windows operation as it tells windows how to handle the core hardware (i.e processor etc). There are different versions of it. Forcing installation of the correct hal may cure this problem; restart text mode setup, and at the beginning where it says 'press F2 to start automated system recovery' etc, press F5, and when the list comes up choose 'ACPI uniprocessor PC'
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ Well the 16 bit text based setup doesn't say that. It just copies the files over. I know what you're talking about though, in the recovery console style boot up. I can use the 6 floppies to get to that, but I can't initiate an install from them (it just asks for the cd-rom). Is there another way to find the right hal.dll? Additionally, I believe the Hard Drive is unbootable. When I just let it go, it says operating system not found. When I put the boot.ini on a floppy, it will look at C:\ for the bootsect.dat and then give me the hal.dll message. Perhaps if I could get it to boot straight from the hard drive, it would look in the right place? But I'm unsure why C: won't boot. I tried Fix boot, fixmbr, and chkdsk /r, but C: seems unbootable. I checked the bios settings too. It's set to boot from hard disk. The hard disk is recognized in bios as well.
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ do you have another computer available? (I can give you instructions to perform a LAN install).
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ Yeah I do, but I'm not sure if the laptop I have (the problematic one) will boot from lan. It doesn't have an option for it. Man, this is horribly frustrating.
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ no chance of getting either a USB CD drive (assuming it can boot them) or a USB-> IDE adapter?
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ Have you got a spare 2GB (or above) USB stick? Theres a method of booting a Windows XP installation from one which I use all the time, saves me burning a CD, forgetting to label it and then wondering why I cant find an XP install CD
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ i suggest trying to boot from usb/cd. never did it but i think i've booted DSL "linux" from usb. the settings are in the bios.
Re: Installing XP with no cd rom drive ~Help~ Well I'm not sure exactly what was wrong, but I figured out that my working laptop had the cd-rom connector as the broken one. So I temp swapped the drives and installed that way. Thanks though guys!
