Installing XP from a second hdd?

Jake2k · 07-22-2008, 04:02 PM

Is it possible to install xp from a second hdd to the same hdd or another hdd? Here's my setup right now:

Three hdds:

Main 160G - Windows XP and main storage.
Second 40G - Windows paging file(4 gigs)
Third 10G - Empty

I have a Win XP .iso image and my computer wont boot from cd so installing from a hdd seems to be my only option, can anyone help me out?

btw if your wondering why I want to install a second Win XP on the same computer it's so I can test out the .iso to make sure it works fine

[t..o..m] · 07-22-2008, 06:29 PM

Nope I think you are out of luck. But the question is why doesn't your computer boot from cd? Is it that the CD drive doesn't work? Or is it because you haven't set to boot from CD in the BIOS? This is an obvious one, but you can't just burn the iso image to a cd, you need a program like 'Imgburn' to extract the image onto the CD

Mak213 · 07-22-2008, 09:01 PM

Hello,

Technically yes. But you can not do it from a ISO. You have to extract the files and have just the installer files sit on the hard drive. Also there can not be any boot records at all. So that it can see the Windows install informatin and start it. This includes the Boot CD info.

So if that drive is partitioned and you put the files on the 3rd partition it wont work. You will need to put it on a seperate hard drive and remove any traces of Windows from the machine to use the files.

Cheers,
Mak

EricB · 07-22-2008, 11:22 PM

you can install xp from the hdd (you must copy the files first), but you still need a bootable cd. otherwise you would have to mount the xp drive within windows and pick the upgrade option. then you would have to click on advance and check "I want to select the partition". you can automatically upgrade to sp3 here too

Jake2k · 07-23-2008, 01:06 AM

Thanks for the info everyone but I got it to work, I just copied the files from the the .iso onto the second hdd and clicked the SETUP.EXE file and it started the process, then when it came time to choose the hdd I chose the one with the files on it and formatted it then installed xp on it. And now I can boot to either Windows XP (Whisper Edition?), Windows XP Pro (the new one) and Ubuntu

. Is there a way to check and see if this copy of XP is a genuine one?

EricB · 07-23-2008, 02:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake2k

Thanks for the info everyone but I got it to work, I just copied the files from the the .iso onto the second hdd and clicked the SETUP.EXE file and it started the process, then when it came time to choose the hdd I chose the one with the files on it and formatted it then installed xp on it. And now I can boot to either Windows XP (Whisper Edition?), Windows XP Pro (the new one) and Ubuntu

. Is there a way to check and see if this copy of XP is a genuine one?

if you gotta ask.....

Jake2k · 07-23-2008, 02:48 AM

haha yea I just wanted to know if by some slim chance it was showing up as a genuine copy... it's not :sigh:

splinter-69 · 07-23-2008, 11:40 AM

im not sure but an idea would be to set your bios to boot from the drive that has xp on it.

Jake2k · 07-23-2008, 10:33 PM

So I was wondering, if I copied all the files from a fresh Windows install onto a blank hdd could I put that hdd in another computer and run it without any problems?

EricB · 07-23-2008, 10:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jake2k

So I was wondering, if I copied all the files from a fresh Windows install onto a blank hdd could I put that hdd in another computer and run it without any problems?

no you can't

Member Login