Help! How can I install Windows on...

[kerykeion]

How can I install Windows 2000 on a notebook computer with no CD-ROM drive? ... Here is the scenario:

I have an old notebook that just has a 3.5" floppy drive and a formatted hard drive. Fortunately, it also has a PCMCIA ethernet card that I is hooked up to a hub along with other computers (all are running Win 9x). So with the Windows 2000 CD in one of the other computers (that has a CD-ROM drive), how can I get it installed and running on the notebook through the network I have?

... I know that I need to "share" the CD-ROM drive on the computer where I plan to put the CD into, but how can I access this shared drive from the notebook to run the Win2K setup? Do I need some sort of startup/boot floppy disk that will allow me to access the shared drive? Is this possible?

I'm a neophyte to deploying clean installations of Win2K over a network, so an in-depth, step-by-step guide would help greatly.

Thanks.

 

[neuralfx]

you could do this a number of ways .. you can get a 98 bootdisk with networking capability, and copy the winnt.exe file to the floppy, boot with it connect to ur network, and run the winnt.exe with the appropriate switch to have it point to ur cdrom's i386 folder, you'll have to look up the syntax .. and this should be it .. there are about 4 or 5 other ways to do this. this is the simplest .. good luck , hope this helps ..
-neural

 

[kerykeion]

I know how to create a Windows 9x startup disc, but if I'm not mistaken, it doesn't initialize any networking components ... it only asks to start the computer with or without CD-ROM support. How do I exactly create a Win9x startup disc with network support that you had mentioned?

Also, don't I have to configure the network card, TCP/IP, workgroup names, etc. to get the notebook to recognize the other computer?

I'll have to try your approach ... it seems easier than I thought Thanks.

 

[neuralfx]

go to bootdisk.com , sorry, forgot to mention that, you will do all that on the bootdisk .. good luck ..
-neural

 

[kerykeion]

That is a good website and there is a wealth of information that I'm going through right now ... however, one more question: can't I simply use the 4 bootup disks directly from the Win2K CD and use those to bootup my notebook? Can they be used to do a network install?

 

[kerykeion]

Anyone? ... Can the 4 bootup disks directly from the Win2K CD be used to bootup my notebook to do a network installation? I have a Linksys 10/100 PCMCIA ethernet card.

 

[BrainStorm24]

No you can't, like the other guy said, get a network boot floppy, you'll need the Dos driver for your network card and modifications to the protocol.ini and system.ini file (if I remember correctly). The easiest way is to have a backpack cd-rom that uses the parallel port.

 

[BrainStorm24]

Oups, I forget the laplink way...the best in your case I think.

 

[potz]

simply copy the i386 folder from the windows cd to the notebook drive and run winnt32.exe or winnt.exe, depending whether you are in dos or in windows when you are installing

 

[bacillus]

DOS-Network Boot Floppy