I was wondering, is there a way to install Windows XP from a partition on my HD? I always copy the I386 folder on a seperate partition & go into the registry to point to where the folder is. I always reinstall every 6 months, and I thought it would be faster to run the installation from the HD rather the CD. Thank You.

You don't need to do a fresh install from scratch... I reinstall a fresh copy about every month complete with programs and personal settings and it only takes about 1/2 an hour. Do this by using a DISK IMAGE. First do a complete and full wipe disk then a full format so the disk is nice and clean. Then install XP and just your BASIC programs. Set them up the way you like, do a defrag, then use a disk image program to take an image of your C drive. You can store that on another partition or CD. When your system becomes slow and full of crap then simply install your backup image and you have a fresh system again in about 1/2 hour.

Not sure but i think you just doubleclick WINNT.exe in your i386 folder on the HDD. Maybe someone else knows for sure. Best

Funny, I'm attempting the same thing at this very moment. I'm still backing things up though. This is the only site I found that even mentions this! My windows CD's keep getting messed up somehow so I'd really like to just keep the install files on a partition from now on. I'm just not sure how to make the partition bootable into the Windows installer. I'm hoping that if I simply copy the entire CD along with the root files onto the partition, and include a boot.ini file that has a choice to boot from that partition, that it will work. Just not quite sure what path to put in boot.ini, since you would normally input the path to windows. Here's hoping. If anyone knows anything about this please let us know! Thanks.

Haven't found the answer yet but I just remembered that the boot.ini will need to reside in the primary first partition, not on the partition containing the install files. So don't copy it or delete it -- just modify it to include an entry that points to the partition you want to install from. I still don't know what to put in for the path in that entry, but I'm working on it.