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Author Topic: Can I install Windows 2000 on notebook without CD, floppy or USB?  (Read 74592 times)

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Geek-9pm

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Can I install Windows 2000 on notebook without CD, floppy or USB?
It is an old Think pad X20 ant the HD has no OS.
I have tried using a bookable USB, but it refuses to boot from USB.
I do not have the manual for it.
It used to be that I could install Windows 2000 again from the HD install partition. But I lost that when I have to format the HD again.

A long time ago there was something in the NT documentation about how to do this, but I don't remember. The think has no CD, no Floppy and will not start from USM.
But the BIOS says there is  such options. But none work.

Any ideas?   :-\



patio

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Re: Can I install Windows 2000 on notebook without CD, floppy or USB?
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2015, 09:43:33 AM »
How did you format ? ?...you should not have lost the recovery install partition.

Have you checked online for a User's Manual ? ?
" Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined. "

Geek-9pm

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Re: Can I install Windows 2000 on notebook without CD, floppy or USB?
« Reply #2 on: May 22, 2015, 10:07:37 AM »
How did you format ? ?...you should not have lost the recovery install partition.
...
My bad. I put the HD in a USB adapter and formatted it.
Yeah, I know. I tell other people never do that to a recovery partition.
But don't do as I do.  :-[

Now what do I do?
OK.
Found the manual.
Now I have to read it.
I will be back in a day or two.  :)

DaveLembke



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Re: Can I install Windows 2000 on notebook without CD, floppy or USB?
« Reply #3 on: May 22, 2015, 10:10:50 AM »
For Windows 2000 you have 3 Microsoft designed options of install:

- Install from recovery partition
- Boot from the Windows 2000 CD
- Boot and install the initial OS off of the 4 floppy disks which then allowed for you to gain access to the CD ROM in which it would mount generic driver that worked with most CD-ROMs at the time.

Other ways I have seen OS's installed:

- Remove Hard Drive and place into another system of very similar hardware specs and build the system off of that and then move the drive to the laptop. If the CPU's are very similar it may work although if drastically different you end up with BSOD in a boot loop with dump messages. * This is kind of bending the EULA rules as for the minute a system is built the drive is suppose to stay with that system. We are assuming that no one would pirate the OS to use 2 copies of the same license on 2 different computers.

- Copy contents of the Windows 2000 CD to a folder on the C: drive using another computer and the drive to be for the laptop connected as an external. First you need to format the laptop drive to be bootable, and then you can attempt to install to itself from say C:\Win2000\setup.exe to C:\windows\

- Use Laplink cable with Laplink or FileVan software to transfer the contents of the Windows 2000 CD to a folder on the C: drive from another computer with a functional CD or DVD ROM over LPT1 parallel or serial port at a slow speed file transfer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LapLink_cable * Back in college we had to do this with an old Compaq to install Windows 98 to it when the CD ROM was bad. I used FileVan trial to achieve this by zipping the contents of the Windows 98 install into a single ZIP file and transfer that since the FileVan trial limited you to transferring like 10 files max per transfer session until you pay to unlock it. So I would then unzip the contents of Windows 98 and run the setup.exe and install 98 to the system from its own hard drive. It took about 10 hours to transfer the entirety of Windows 98 from CD on one system through Parallel Port to the laptop in master/slave communication mode. We set it to run at the end of the college class and came back the next day with it completed. Serial Null Cable would have transferred way faster, but we didn't have that available at the time 15 years ago.

- Drive duplicator to copy it from one same model computers hard drive to the other, and then correct the key manually so that its running off of the correct key as seen on license key label on laptop.