Hi Techie Guys, I need your Help

Here is my current system config:
Fujitisu Lifebook B series Touch screen Laptop
500 MHZ Celeron
128 MB RAM 100 MHZ
Currently 3 GB HDD, but I also have 40 GB HDD
NO CD Drive, No floppy Drive, 2 USB port

Now the Problem: This is a old laptop with 3 GB HDD, currently there is no OS in so it doesnt boot..I wish to put 2k or XP in it with 40 GB HDD..how can i do that as there is no CD rom n no floppy drive..fujitisu drivers are available for 2k..
Note: it shows both 128 MB ram n 40 GB hdd in BIOS

Is it possible to ( i can take out the HDD from laptop)
1. Partition 40 GB HDD by connection to my comp or as USB
2. Install DOS in it and Copy 2k or XP set up
3. Put it in laptop and run setup for 2k/XP from DOS..

Need your Help

More to do with XP or W2K forum, but what the heck:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307...

Does it have a USB port and will it boot from a USB port? You can get USB floppy drives if it will pick up items from the USB port.

Is there a reason you don't just buy a cdrom? It's like you're tuning up the engine in a car with no wheels. Even if you get the engine running good the car isn't going anywhere.

I hope you won't be doing anything useful on this as it will absolutely crawl with XP and anything other than webbing or light text app like wordpad.

Hi DAVEINCAPS,

Amazing the way great minds think alike.

=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

I am amazed that none of you answered my questions listed at the end and instead tried to get a workaround...which a techie would have easily known not possible.

Reply 2; Does it have a USB port and will it boot from a USB port? You can get USB floppy drives if it will pick up items from the USB port

ans; Yes it has 2 usb port but bootable by floppy or HDD and note there is no floppy drive

reply 3(DAVEINCAPS):"Is there a reason you don't just buy a cdrom? It's like you're tuning up the engine in a car with no wheels. Even if you get the engine running good the car isn't going anywhere."

I have a USB CD rom and even if i buy CD rom what will i do with that..it will be better if you read and understand the problem...

Reply 4:"I hope you won't be doing anything useful on this as it will absolutely crawl with XP and anything other than webbing or light text app like wordpad."

You r right, thats y i was thinking for 2k..i wish to use it for internet only as test machine

Then why if W2K is your goal are you posting in the "MS-DOS and Compatable O/S" Forum ??

I'm not familiar with your laptop but I assume it has a bay for a cdrom. So the purpose in buying one would be to install and use it.

It's preferred to partition the drive in the computer in which it's to be used as sometimes the drive will be seen differently by the two bios'. But that appears to be your only option given you have no floppy or cdrom drives.

With 98 you can always copy the contents of the win98 folder from the cd to the hard drive and then install from there. I don't know if you can do that with 2K or XP but I suppose you could blaze a trail and see if it'll work that way.

Using 2K may be more difficult since it'll need to be installed on an NTFS partition so dos--which needs a FAT partition--won't install. With XP you could follow the directions in the link in #1 but copy the relevent files to the hard drive and attempt the installation from there.

Hi DAVEINCAPS,

w2k will install from a copy of the i386 directory; and it does NOT need NTFS.

=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

Thanks for the correction. I'd never tried anything like that with 2K--I don't think I've ever installed 2K before. But I didn't think it could be done from a FAT drive.

It looks like if he wants to install 2K on it without the benefit of at least a cdrom then he'll have to copy the files to the drive while it's connected to another PC.

Actually you can install W2K on 4GB FAT 16 as well, but it is still the wrong forum..................

"I am amazed that none of you answered my questions listed at the end and instead tried to get a workaround...which a techie would have easily known not possible."

Gosh - if you're so damned smart, why don't you just go ahead then? I doubt that you're qualified to say what is and isn't possible

I'm pretty amazed myself - at how often we get these lunkhead posts hoping to use some broken down bit of machinery - - fix it or forget about it, but if you must, perform a 'flat install' as per this page (for XP, but 2K is the same)

All you have to do is (from another machine) make the hard drive bootable to DOS (Win98) and copy over the CD-ROM folder and subfolders (i386), navigate to that directory and run 'Winnt' once the drive has been restored to the target machine

More RAM would be advisable for XP, but 500MHz is reasonable

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You can install both W2K and XP from DOS.
The problem is that neither of the above OS-es "likes" to be installed from devices they're not connected to with their own drivers.

I have installed numerous W2K and XP systems via DOS.

One way is to temporarily move the hard drive to another computer and there prepare it for an OS installation to come. The drive should ideally be freshly formatted to FAT32, this can later easily be changed to NTFS if desired. It must also be set to "Primary" and "Active" in order to make it bootable.

Step 2 is to copy the i386 folder from the installation CD to the hard drive. After that you must expand all files containing a tilde sign (~). This is to be done in the Windows CLI. The command, assuming your drive letter is D:, goes like:

D:
cd i386
expand *~*.*

After this, move your hard drive back to your designated computer, start it up with an ordinary DOS boot floppy (I have only used the DOS from W98) and type:

C:
cd i386
winnt

You could also first try winnt /? to see more parameters for this, like specifying an unattended installation answer file (WINNT.SIF).

As soon as the W2K or XP installation begins you can (and should) remove your DOS boot floppy, unless you also placed your WINNT.SIF on it, in that case wait some 10 seconds extra.

If all this sounds too much, try installing Windows on another computer and then move the hard drive back to the original. The installed system will automatically discover the different hardware and adjust itself to it.

Hope this made some sense.

Why expanding the files containing a tilde? Because if not, the W2K or XP installer complains that it cannot "find" these files. The message is a bit misleading, the real problem is that the installer for some reason can't expand them. I guess that this inability has something to do with DOS'es handling the tilde sign.

I haven't found any information about this on the net but discovered this myself. I have often gotten in touch with odd laptops without built-in CDROMs, so I used a parallel port CDROM. The problem with that device was that its W2K/XP driver would load first after the OS was completely installed. Luckily there was a DOS driver that worked.

Hi Ritsch-Ratsch,

I haven't done XP, but have done many w2k and never had to expand.

But I'll keep it in mind.

I always make the HD DOS bootable and include himem and smartdrv; no FD or CD needed.

=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

I have been doing the hard installs since NT4, but any NT O/S should not be discussed here, the OP has long since gone so it seems irrellevent to post diatribes, even ones which are incorrect!!

I guess you're the diatribe expert.

=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

The tilde problem may have something to do with the fact that all my DOS and Windows versions are Swedish language.

If this isn't a problem in English versions so much the better.

As to whether this question is posted in the correct forum or not, I think we should relax and lessen the orthodoxy a bit. DOS isn't a holy OS that must exclude the use of other OSes. It is, like XP, a tool, to be used where it does some good.

In fact, my entire use od DOS is for situations like the one described here.

Hi Ritsch-Ratsch,

Like you, I'd rather learn and try to help than complain about what is or isn't DOS.

Just another tool in the toolbox.

=====================================
If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

M2

I may have missed the model number but is it a 2131 or 2130. If so it is a tablet PC, no floppy, no CD-rom. Like you I asked and no one knew the answer. After hours of research I found the solution.

First. a regular format on another machine will not work. when you put the drive back into the fujitsu series b laptop it will give you a disk error.

I figured there may be something proprietary to their formatting.

the only thing that worked was to buy a port replicator part number cp044155, then buy an external molex floppy drive that connects to the port replicator...a USB cd-rom nor a usb floppy will work, it must be the part number CA 02950-1482 Fujitsu model FPCFDD02. You will also need a proprietary boot floppy from
fujitsu. don't remember the link and can't find it back.

Once you have those 3 things it's as simple as described above. First format the disk while still in the laptop using the boot floppy, make sure you either format /s or sys the hard drive so it will have the DOS OS to boot into.

Then remove the hard drive from the laptop and hook it up using a external usb case to another computer. With that computer pop in your 2k disk and right click copy the 2k cd to the laptop drive.

Now put the drive back in the laptop boot the laptop using the hard drive, navigate to the install directory for on the hard drive type setup and it's just like installing from the cd only faster. I've done this on 3 of these same machines with 98 2k and XP and all work great. Even fast enough for web surfing a little extra ram helps but contrary to some beliefs it runs pretty smoothly with XP.

Oh ya, check ebay for port replicator and maybe the floppy for better price, you'll get raped through Fujitsu