Installing Win2000 UPGRADE on laptop with no CD drive

I am visiting my mom for Xmas and need to upgrade the laptop I gave her a while ago. I am seeking to put Win 2000 on it fresh.

The problem - I have an UPGRADE install CD of Win2000 pro. I have the NT4 CD with me but the laptop to be upgraded has NO CD drive nor do I have any compatible. If I try to load Win2000 on this laptop, it will ask for the NT4 CD but I have no drive into which to insert it!

I have the CD drive on MY laptop and a net connection but during the Win2000 install the connection wouldn't be present.

Any ideas how I can do a proper install with the files from the CDs and not have it fail because I don't have a CD drive for mom's laptop to prove I own the upgrade?

Thanks

 

If you copy the NT4 CD to a folder on the hard drive, when 2K asks to see it you should be able to browse to it.

If your upgrading Win98 then see my advice on the thread http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=50531

If it’s WinME then an upgrade is not possible, you will have to do a new install.

 

Hi and thanks!

I've tried copying all the files, before, onto a drive without luck during similar "upgrade" versions. Heck, once I even had a CD copy of NT 3.51 when doing an NT 4 upgrade install and it didn't accept it. I also have had the entire installed directories restored from backup and it didn't accept that, either. Not unless the boot sector and/or boot files were in order for the install, too.

 

Sorry stelliger, I misread your post. You want to do a fresh install of 2K rather than upgrade the existing OS on the laptop. Otherwise why would you need to get 2K to see the NT4 disk, it would have just used the existing OS for the upgrade verification "“ Doh! (Mental note: I must pay attention).

If you correctly copy the whole NT4 disk to the hard drive then 2K should not have a problem seeing it and using it for verification. (EDIT:- just decided to try this and can't get the install to look on the hard drive. I must be thinking of a Windows initiated install instead of from DOS, sorry about that). Is the current OS still bootable and what is it? I assume you have a way of copying 2K to the hard drive so you can run the setup.

Another way you could do it is to leave the current OS and partition intact and just put 2K in a folder, then from Windows start the install and 2K will use the old OS for upgrade verification. Choose to do a new install rather than an upgrade and you will end up with a dual boot for both the current OS and 2K. Just delete the old OS and modify the boot.ini accordingly once you don’t want it any more.

You will need drivers for 2K so if you need the ethernet card working in 2K make sure you have the drivers for it on floppy before you start. Alternatively if the current OS is working, use that until 2K is up and running - so don’t convert to NTFS during the 2K install if the current is on FAT32.

Both OSes will share the Program Files folder, so if you can, take a note of all the folders in it before you install 2K, so that you can later trim out unshared program folders.