How to Install Win2K to a blank drive on a laptop?

[Guest]

I have a Windows 2000 Pro CD.
I created Windows 2000 boot floppies
I have a laptop with a blanked out hard drive (don't ask)
The laptop has ONE additional bay for EITHER a floppy or a CD ROM Drive.

Problem - If I power-on with the CD drive (and CD ROM in it), nothing happens. It's not bootable. If I start with the floppy drive and the boot floppies, everything goes fine until it finishes with the floppies and now needs to access the CD ROM. It doesn't recognize the CD ROM drive if I swap it in at this point. I'm stuck!

I can't be the only person to install Windows to a laptop -- how is this done?!

zinj
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[ejsmith2]

Here's the deal. If you have the retail win2k cd, it's bootable =)

If your cdrom/bios won't let you boot from cd (i.e. 3+ years old), then you'll have to use a parallel cable which hooks up your floppy drive to the lpt port on the back of your laptop, and plug your cdrom into the bay. If you don't have the adapter cable, then you've either lost it or it never came with the laptop which means you'll have to order it off the net.

You may have to go into your bios and select the cdrom as the first boot device. I usually make my hard disk the second, and my floppy as the third.

 

[Frocer]

Easy..

Just boot your computer with a boot disk (with CD-Rom driver loaded), then go in the I386 directory and then type winnt.

that will start the installation

 

[Guest]

Thanks all -- Telling the BIOS to book from the CD drive did the trick. (I thought it already WAS doing this, but apparently not!). Apparently, there's really no use for the 4 boot floppies I created!