On a laptop, I have a faulty dvd burner which does not recognize bootable cd's or dvd's although it can read them once xp is launched.

With xp already installed, I would like to install a dual boot environment with w2k-sp4. Whenever I click on setup on the w2k cd, I get a rebuttal from Microsoft stating that the OS I want to install is older the installed one.

I copied the cd contents to hard disk and tried from there. Same message.

Is there a parameter I can work on which would suppress this lock Microsoft has put in so that I could run the setup from i386 on hard disk?

Your CD drives need to have a driver installed and you will be able to boot from them.
Even if you manage to install Win2000 you will need to modify the boot.ini file to reflect the changes.
If you are considering installing to the SAME partition I would recommend against even attempting that. If you have only ONE partition then you would need to use a partitioning software. If you are unfamiliar with that type of program you can easily trash your WinXP intallation.

If you don't mind asking, what is the need for Win2000? WinXP should be able to run anything 2000 can.

"... I have a faulty dvd burner which does not recognize bootable cd's or dvd's although it can read them once xp is launched."

That's quite possible if the drive has been used a lot, but....
- the bios Setup settings must have a CD or DVD drive listed before all hard drives in the boot order - is that correct?
- have you tried a laser lens cleaning CD in the drive?

Tubes, the OP stated the drive works after WinXP is running. This is a laptop. I think just drivers for the drive.

I have encountered several well used CD or DVD drives that work fine except for the fact the computer bios can no longer boot a bootable CD in them. Of course, if his bios boot order settings are not right he wouldn't be able to boot a CD even if there is nothing wrong with the drive, and I was reminding him of that. And using a laser lens cleaning CD sometimes cures the problem.

As far as I have been able to determine, he should be able to boot using the bios even a CD in a proprietary drive that requires special drivers in Windows, though I doubt a DVD drive would require them, if there is nothing wrong with the drive.

Echoing "Tubes..." in his post-4 all the way

If the drive works in XP when booted thru... it does suggest the unit is actually OK; but a lens cleaning routine may be a useful itemt to consider (and the kits cost only a few pennies overall)?

As regards actually instaling W2K for a dual-boot... As "OtheHill" advises... do not try to put it in the same partitin as XP. XP is generally very intolerant of other OS sharing its partition... (although it often does allow it)...

And if/when you do instal it.. it wil disable access to XP temporarily... as a result. It replaces XP version of ntldr/ntdetect.com with the W2K - and those do not recognise XP... So prior to installing W2K - copy the XP version of those two files either to a usb stick - and lock it (for safety)...; and/or to an easily accessible location on the Primary partition. Once W2K installed simply restore the XP version of the two files to the c: root (thus overwriting the W2K versions); The dual-boot will then operate correctly. Any required changes/additions to the boot.ini will be made by W2K during its installation.

Back to the dvd drive issue: will it read/boot from the XP CD (even if not others) - as in the drive is physically set as first boot device?

To OtheHill : I intend to install w2k in a separate partition in order to keep XP just in case. This is on an old HP omnibook xt1000s laptop (Celeron 1.33Ghz). W2k operates much faster than xp. I’ve been using it on my day-to-day pc which is a dual boot xp/w2k. Furthermore, for the past 5 years, I’ve had practically no problem with w2k except maybe 2 or 3 BSOD’s. On the other hand, during that same period, I had to reinstall XP about 5 times because it was unrepairable!! 2 good reasons to ignore xp, let alone Vista.

To Tubesandwires : The dvd reader stopped booting about a year and a half after I purchased the laptop. It’s faulty and I can’t replace it because it's an old model with a plug on the side instead of the middle. My boot order is correct when I try to boot from dvd. I haven’t tried the laser lens cleaning CD but I will.

I’ll probably end up doing what trvlr suggests. I am aware of the ntldr / ntdetect.com problem. I have no problem at all accessing CD’s or DVD’s in that reader once the OS is running. It’s just the boot that doesn’t work.

Does this laptop allow a usb boot; and presumably it does NOT have a floppy drive available?

One possibility - a real long shot...: remove the hard-drive; install via an adapter to another desktop system - with a working CD/DVD unit. Install W2K to a separate partition that way - and also install the Recovery Console; after-which restore the XP version of ntldr/ntdetect.com. Then restore the drive to the laptop...

All being equal you will still be able to boot XP (?); and possibly be able repair the W2K installation via W2K Recovery Console? A repair routine is one way (as in the M$ KB) to transfer a W2K installation to another MoBo etc...

I haven't tried it; hope I never have to... but it might "just" work?

It doesn't allow a USB boot, as far as I know (Boot order lists only floppy, cd, disk, Lan). On the other hand, it does recognize a floppy drive which I insert as a USB device. Through a Windows 98 diskette boot, I accessed the w2k cd from DOS and clicking on setup returned an error message stating I couldn't install from that environment.

I didn't investigate the Lan option although I am set up that way and my different stations have shareable items.

Yes - W2K will not install from a standard dos level boot - without a little work/or a modified approach.

Since you can access the floppy drive (as you advise) then use the 4 W2K setup floppies + the CD to install W2K - to its own space/partition.. And of course remembering the ntldr/ntdect.com issue...

Actually if you boot a 98 or ME boot diskette with cdrom support its easy to install W2K.

You boot the floppy. Go to the cd drive by whatever drive letter you saw assigned upon bootup. Copy the i386 folder to the partition [you have already done]. Go there and run winnt [was the floppyless install available with W2K? winnt /b ? I forget its been so long :) ]to start install.

As you have learned you can't install an older OS from within a newer OS. You can via floppy or cd boot [which you should still be able to do if the burner doesn't boot].

Caveat: You may get a message about "disk is locked to prevent corruption" or similar message when booting/running setup from a 98/ME diskette. Command to use is "unlock c:" and hit enter. This will give access to the drive again so you can install.

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Thanks to both of you. This approach through diskettes appears to be the simplest. I'll come back to you to confirm.

Going through boot diskette and copying i386 to disk didn't work out as I still got the error message stating OS could not be installed from DOS.

In the meantime, I discovered 2 avenues which I will probably follow:

1) The most "comfortable" solution. Implementation of a Boot Manager such as Acronis OS Selector which should allow me to install any OS.

2) If it ever backfires, W2k can be installed through the four W2k setup diskettes. I successfully initiated the process. It went normally through the recognition of existing xp partitions and allowed me to select the area where the W2k partition was to be placed. I voluntarily stopped its formatting when I realized everything appeared to be running fine and dandy.

Solution 1 will probably require the least fiddling around, and turn out to be the safest and the fastest.

I'll keep you posted.

The four W2K floppies + CD path is a safe way to go. Installing from the i386 on the drive "can" be made to work; but I forget just now what the workaround is in your present situation.

The add-in boot-util is equally viable and may well be the safer way to go at this stage - especially as you also may have to create a separate partition for it (or have already done that without it?).

Incidentally you say that you did start the 4 floppies route and canceled at an appropriate stage... Did you (as inquired immediately above) already have a designated partition/space for it; or were you expecting W2K to allow that option etc. during setup? If the latter - during setup - that would not have worked...; you would have lost the current XP installation totally.

Overall I'd opt for the boot-util on this occasion; and I don't usually go for them...

I THINK there is an advantage to using a boot manager. That would be that if one OS gets corrupted you can still boot to the others. Whereas using Window boot logger doesn't work that smoothly.

In my interrupted trial installation with the w2k diskettes, when asked by the Installer where I wanted the new system, I selected unallocated space. I remembered that it did ask the question, as does xp, when you install in that type of environment. I always preferred using separate partitions for different OS's.

I wonder if the workaround trvlr is refering to isn't a copy from the CD to the hard disk under a DOS environment. I may have made a mistake by doing the copy under Windows and then booting from a Windows 98 diskette. Although I did make sure the partition I created then was FAT32.

Why did you have unallocated space? Is your HDrive larger than 127GB?

I just didn't have any need for that space which is just 5GB wide. The max disk space is only 20 or 30GB.

OK, I was concern because of possible 48bit LBA issues, which don't affect that drive size.

Basically the install from the drive; copy the i386 to the drive; access it from a dos boot and boot run winnt.exe. "Usually2 it works... but not always...

Had you said you have spare space on the drive... pholks would have addressed this whole query/post slightly differently? The "bog" standard dual-boot arrangement - using the XP boot-loader etc. - will do all you need; no real need of an add-in util. Again paying regard to the ntldr/ntdetect.com issue of course...

But equally, as OtheHill advises, there "are" advantages to using the add-in util... if you really want to feel secure. With your latest info in mind.... I'd go a non-boot-util approach. The less involved with an OS boot etc. the better overall?

How exactly did you arrive at the error

"I still got the error message stating OS could not be installed from DOS."

I would not recommend third party boot managers when you have the builtin MS one. Reason is its one more thing that can go wrong and with the MS boot loader it is not required. If you were booting Linux or other OS's than I would say yes to a 3rd party boot manager.

Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Hi Wanderer: as not infrequently happens... we are both of the same mind here...

With the arrangement he has at present, I wouldn't go with an add-in util; and similarly I am !phlumoxed! as to why he gets the error he gets...

Also did the '98 boot routine he ran in the earlier/initial attempts include running smartdrv.exe - without which W2K would take an age to go (if it ever managed it all...)?

I'll follow your suggestion and use the 2nd Solution. I'll do that over the week-end as I ran into a difficulty installing XP after Vista on a friend's Dell Inspiron while I had no problem at all doing the same thing on my new HP laptop. I'm reporting this in another thread.

I'll let you know how I made out with Solution 2.

I finally succeeded in installing w2k although it did require a number of retries as is usually the case in IT.
Using the 4 setup diskette approach, I ran into the following message while the 4th diskette was being read:
“The following value in the .SIF file used by setup is corrupted or missing:
Value '0' on the line in section [SourceDiskFiles] with key "SP4.CAB"
After several unsuccessful attempts with new diskettes, I discovered that the error was due to the use of a w2k-sp4 slipstreamed cd. After replacing the txtsetup.sif file on the first diskette with the txtsetup.sif file from the i386 folder on the cd, I managed to complete the w2k installation.
The dual boot worked as soon as I copied the previously saved ntldr and NTDETECT.COM files back to the XP partition.
Everything’s fine except that under W2k the laptop screen is partially filled. But that’s another story.
Many thanks to all of you for your time.

Hi,

I Have a laptop with W98 / W2K & WXP plus a shared data drives - I think that's what you want.

Basically setup W98 (or dos) as the 1st (primary partition).

Then use a boot manager such as Mr booter (uses efdisk) haven't the link but it's shareware / freeware. - It's not vry good but it does setup the 3 primary partitiions you need.

Then hide the W98 partition (using efdisk) & create a W2K primary partition. You will need to delete & recreate re-format the partition under W2K as it seems to disagree with efdisk but it will be a primary one.

Then hide the W98 & W2K partitions (using efdisk) & create a XP primary partition. You will need to delete & recreate re-format the partition under XP as (again) it seems to disagree with efdisk but it will be a primary one.

Then create a extended partition for data.

I use NTFS4DOS to access the NTFS patrtitions from W98 - NTFS is much more resilant than Fat or Fat 32.

One comment do NOT defrag partitions other than the one that the OS in is installed in - it will trash the other OS. Also remove W2K & XP's indexing for the other drives (otherwise they won't REALLY see the drive(.

Hope it helps - good luck

Just an interested guy