Problem

[knaia]

When I set up my new rig (Will post about it with pictures and all later on when I get time), I had a 40 gb ATA drive laying around with Windows 2000 Professional on it. I bought a 250 GB SATA2 drive when I got the PC. The XP disk I have wasn't bootable, nor did it have SP2. I had to plug in the 40 GB to boot into Win 2K and then install XP from there, formatting the drive as 132 GB, then after installing SP2 on it using Partition Magic to move it to 250 GB.

My real problem, is that if I remove the 40 GB, It says NTLDR is missing. I want the 40 GB out of my setup, because it is slow, loud, and I don't trust it. I have searched all over, tried copying NTLDR, tried copying boot.ini, but for NTLDR I just get a message saying it can't find it. Any suggestions anyone?

Thanks,
Kevin

[zittware]

Your going to have to get a real copy of winxp+SP2 which is bootable and reinstall without the 40GB HD in the system.

There are ways to "hack around" this... but none are sure-fire and you'll like have trouble with the SATA configuration even if you somehow managed to copy the necessary boot sectors and files to the new drive.

WinXP RTM will not install on SATA boot drives. You need SP2.

[knaia]

The copy I had never booted period. Is there any way to get an XP SP2 disk without buying it? Cause I owe too much for this already, and I want to buy Vista when it comes out.

[bobvillain]

why don't you just get the vista beta? it's in open beta right now i believe, so all you have to do is sign up for the technet thing or whatever.

[fivecheebs]

The copy I had never booted period. Is there any way to get an XP SP2 disk without buying it? Cause I owe too much for this already, and I want to buy Vista when it comes out.

nLite (http://www.nliteos.com/) will let you slipstream SP2 and create a bootable disk. You can also remove the chaff, and add drivers if you want.

[Da_Rude_Baboon]

++

Download SP2 from MS's website and use nlite to add it to the original installer.

[furious trout]

pah nlite is for wusses - real men use the command line :-p (http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp)

But yeah that's yer best bet slipstream it all the way.

[fivecheebs]

hehe! Y'know, ive often looked for a page like that (like the bink Win2k SP slipstream page that i used to use) but never found it :lol: For a simple slipstreamed CD then i'd use that method, but you cant easily add the F6 SATA driivers, other drivers, remove chaff etc. that you can easily with nLite, so it has its place.

Thanks for that link mate :thumb:

[furious trout]

No probs I use it at work all the time, obviously there's no need for me to remove anything when I'm doing these builds (tbh I use it more with Office than the OS)

fyi all i did was google for slipstreaming sp2 into XP

[knaia]

How do I find the actual download file for SP2 on Microsoft's Website.

bobvillian: Vista Beta has never been an open download for me. Every time I go to the site it says I can't get it.

[furious trout]

It's all in that link I posted but here you go if you can't be arsed reading through it...:-p

Linky (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=049C9DBE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en)

[knaia]

Oh I found that I just didn't think it was the right one. I did it all, and made my disk, but it didn't work. Says something about not being able to find setup files when I go to install. I put Windows 2000 Professional back on here for now because thats all I could install on my SATA2 only drive. My friend is giving me his Vista BETA copy tomorrow so I am just going to run that.

He is also helping me with cable management cause right now all you see through my windows is a nest of wires. I really suck at cable management so I am not even gonna try.

Thanks for the help guys!