Who wants to help me install Win2000?
 

I have been working on this for days and I am not getting any closer. I am about ready to throw these drives and computers through a window!

I have a "new" tablet PC. It came with a valid Win2000 key but no HD. I have pulled two 2.5" laptop drives out that were known to be good, a Win2000 CD, and several boot floppies for Win98SE. Here is what I want to do:

- make my new HD bootable with 2000 system files
- copy the I386 folder and setup files to the new HD while in XP
- copy my tablet PC drivers and stuff to the new HD while in XP
- put the new HD in the tablet, boot to DOS on it and install win2000 while it is in the tablet

So far I am catching hell doing this (several reasons - maybe I just need some help). Anyone out there want to lead me through it? Anyone have a better way of doing it? Thanks!!!

Hmmmmm

What I would do is just put in one of the working HD's and boot off the W2K cd. Have it go ahead and delete any partitions and then use the FAST reformatting option. In this case, you'll get W2K on there pretty quick.

Oh, and then there is the drivers....
You could go into the drivers folder and then put all of them on a USB flash stick or something (obviously before you put in the new HD and re-format it). OR. When you re-load W2K, use another computer and find the ethernet driver for your model, d/l it to a flash stick and install it on the laptop. From there, run the shit out of windows update to find any other drivers and to bring it up to date. That's how i built MANY images for various computers. Hell, if i were still at my old job, i could do it for you lol.

The problem with booting off the CD is that installing 2000 on the HD while it is in a real computer is screwing things up. I really need to install 2000 while it is in the tablet. I'm not sure what it is about it but everything is so non-standard that it just doesn't work when I swap it in the tablet. I go through to the part that copies the files onto the drive and then put it in the tablet. It just won't get through to the "2nd boot up" thing where it does all the drivers and stuff.

the tablet has no floppy or cdrom drives? can you make a generic bootable drive with bartpe or something?

can the tablet boot off a thumb drive? you can sometimes get away with creating a PE on a thumb drive and boot from that. but it's not easy.

Nope, no floppy or cd. I haven't really checked the bios but I would say 99% chance that it won't boot from USB.

i wonder what the minimum requirement is to access a thumb drive. like from DOS or whatnot.

Put your hard drive in a computer with a CD-ROM drive, and start the installation process. The first time it tries to restart after it has copied all the files over turn the computer off. Boot up to Windows XP or whatever and copy over the CD files to a folder on the hard drive you are installing Win2k on. Then put the hard drive in your tablet, and when you boot it up it will continue to install/setup the files. At some point it will ask for the CD, but will give you the option to specify the location. Point it towards the folder with the copied win2k CD.

I've gotten this to work once with WinXP, but I would think Win2K would be similar.

I missed this. It sounds like you already tried what I suggested.

You can't let it boot at all on the normal computer before you put it in the tablet. I am sure you did that though.

I don't know if why a new tablet would have win2k, but if it has SATA drives you might have to load the driver on the real computer with f6 or f8 or whatever it is when the CD is booting up. It will say press F* now to install SCSI drivers.

Also you could try "slipstreaming" drivers into the CD, and burn a custom CD to install from. I found this http://www.vorck.com/windows/2ksp5.html with a google search for "slipstream drivers windows 2000". There are probably better articles, but it looks like its possible.

It is definitely not a new tablet (I don't have $3500 to burn on one of those). I paid $49 for it on ebay <G>. Also, no SATA drives. It uses and extremely expensive and RARE (been trying to find one for 2 weeks) proprietary IDE cable to attach a 2.5" drive. I don't think the custom CD would help. I don't think I'll have problems with the drivers if I can get them on the HD and get the installation process started while the drive is in the tablet.

This is the Stylistic you spoke of a while back, I take it?

Indeed- the only way to boot the unit externally is with a specific CD-ROM drive that Fuji sells. When I realized this about mine, I immediately pulled the HD and ghosted it.

Here's a wag. And I've never tried it, it's just a random theory.

Format the hard drive to FAT16 and install DOS. Copy the whole CD-ROM into a directory on the HD. Put the HD into the tablet and boot it, then start the installer. I just can't remember if you have to start the 2k install process from the 2k boot floppy, or if you can call it directly.

Alternately, you could try XP. I say this only because it seems to be much more tolerant of being moved from one computer to another than 2k was. Not sure how tolerant, but what's there to lose? Do a full install on your main computer, then transfer the drive in complete, bootable condition.

Yes, it is the stylistic. I had a 3400 (recommended by you) which I used for a little bit of tuning but usually it was just a garage computer used to listen to internet radio and look up some web info. I wanted to use it for mp3s but the audio was horrible on it. I was assuming that the 3500 would have better audio (heck, it was worth a try) so I bought a cheap one. The DOS idea isn't a bad one if I can figure out how to get the entire 30GB drive recognized. I spent another day trying stuff and figure I might take it to work and let our computer guy (who knows far less than me) play with it on company time. Maybe he can figure something out. I've never played with W2K much but I know he has installed it a million times.

You won't. But you could use Partition Magic later to correct it.

Or, you could make a Win98SE boot floppy, boot your main PC from that, and use it to format the drive and copy the files.

I am having problems with the formatting on the drives. I have tried two of them so far and having strange results with the format. This may be the main problem that is keeping me from getting W2K. The computer I am using to do the formatting is a Dell and it will not let me manually set the sectors and stuff. I have heard that it may be critical (some others had problems with this). I guess I could pull one of my arcade machines apart and grab the tower out of it to do all the formatting (all I have laying around here are laptops).

Swissknife can format just about anything you want. fat32 beyond the limit, etc.

http://www.compuapps.com/Download/sw...swissknife.htm

[QUOTE=Joe Perez;252937]TK421, why aren't you at your post?
TK421, do you copy?QUOTE]


If I call you a geek does it mean that I am also pointing the finger at myself?

I tried to get in on that same geekness but,,, maybe too subtle?

No, you followed the cellblock 1138 thread perfectly. There was one thread where all of us lined up in perfect order, and I laughed my ass off.

Move along, move along.