Creating Bootable Windows XP Setupdisk
1. Copy the contents of your Windows XP Setupdisk to your PC's harddrive, be sure you copy ALL the files. (for our example, we'll copy them to c:\winxpboot\ )
2. Then copy the file: smartdrv.exe to this same folder (c:\winxpboot) (smartdrv.exe can be found with the windows 98 or on the web)
3. Open neroburn.
4. In the wizard or startsmart, go to Create Bootable Disc.
5. Put in the windows 98 boot disk floppy
6. Nero will ask for either the boot image locatoin or to use the Floppy, use the floppy. Then Click NEW.
7. Now go to the C:\winxpboot folder and copy all of the files on the CD project. and then Burn the disk, be sure to finalize the disk too!
Once it finishes, you will have a bootable windows xp disk.
Installing XP from this Boot Disk:
1. First things first, go into your PC's BIOS and change the Boot Order, so your PC Boots your CD Drive first. Save your settings and put in your bootable XP disk we made.
2. It will boot to the Windows 98 Setup screen, click Boot with CD-ROM
3. Once it finishes going though setting up the cd drivers, and ramddrive, it will bring you back to a A:\ prompt.
4. If you have to create partitions or format the harddrive do so now.
5. Once the drives are ready, reboot again with the BIOS Settings as they were and the xp bootable disk in. Again, choose to Boot with CD-ROM.
6. Once at the A:\ again, go to the drive assocated with your CD (for example, the e drive) by typing e:
-now you will be at a: e:\
-now type: smartdrv
-then type it again, it will hopefully show your C drive with disk cache enabled.
The reason i suggest using smartdrv when installing from dos is that it drastically improves file transfer speed and XP reommends it.
7. Now that smartdrv is enabled, we will want to start the installation process. We should still be at the E:\ prompt.
-now type: CD i386
the prompt should change to: E:\I386\
-then type: winnt
8. This will start the Windows XP installation program.
Once it gets down copying files, it will tell you that you will need to reboot. Hit Enter to reboot.
NOTE!!!! When it is rebooting, we will need to be sure to go into the PC's BOIS Settings again and change the boot order so that the Harddrive is the first boot device or just remove the cd until the xp installation program starts again (since we have the cd set as the primary boot device and the cd is a bootable disk, we would just boot back into our bootdisk rather than the windows xp installation program that gets copied to the computers harddrive)
9. Now the rest of the windows xp installation will be like any other method.
