hello i bought my laptop from ebay a long time ago. I have this theory i hope it works so i need your advise.If I copy the folder i386 to usb or cd (as a backup),can I format c, then using BArt PE paste the folder i386 back to hard drive and then run winnt32.exe, would that reinstall windows2000? (or winnt?) I hope is clear what i am trying to do , so you know, i have the original sticker and ive been to ms update and it is genuine, i hope what im trying to do is ok with you, i just want to start fresh.

This is for XP but the principle is the same: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307...

ive seen that method around here, but i have no floopy drive.And I'm curious about the "method" i described above because I do not have a installation cd, I have used Bart PE cd to reinstall winxp and win2k before from the folder i386 on the harddrive. im justrying to make a win 2000 installation cd.

If you have a CD-RW (or DVD-RW) you could create a bootable CD (research "el torito CD" on google) with the i386 folder on it and run winnt.exe from there. You don't run the winnt32.exe from a command line. You only use that from within the GUI (Windows).

ok, i see, ive used winnt32.exe within the Bart pe gui, so do you do you think what im trying to do could work? my resources are limited. thank you

FYI Nero can create a **-DOS Bootable CD which you can also add the other files/folders listed in the M$ link above.

Hah~ I should have checked, I have Nero and didn't even realize it could do that. No surprise, there isn't any better burner software out there. Yes gigaferz, it would work. It's no differant than copying the \i386 folder onto your hard drive and running winnt.exe from there.....and I've done that a lot. I used to partition my drives. Smaller partition for the OS, larger for data/app's. I'd put the \i386 folder on the larger partition (keeping it FAT32 so a DOS bootdisk could read it) and install from there after slipstreaming the \i386 folder. As long as the CD is bootable, contains DOS commands and the \i386 folder, you're good to go. I would slipstream the latest service pack into the \i386 folder prior to burning it to the CD. This will save time updating your OS. Also, you will want to include smartdrv.exe on the CD. Enabling it before you start the install will allow files to copy to the hard drive as fast as possible. Google "smartdrv" and you'll find a link to download it. Once you have it ready, boot to the CD. Once booted from the command line type the following commands: smartdrv [enter] cd \i386 [enter] winnt [enter]