A Windows XP question

OK...first of all, this isn't a security question, but we don't really have a forum for hardware or OS's, I refuse to post in general chit chat for moral reasons (you addicts know why), so I'm posting my query here. I've done a few searches regarding this because I do recall seeing this mentioned in a thread in the recent past, but thus far I've had no luck in finding an answer.

Here's the setup...I've got an ABIT KT7a RAID motherboard that refuses to boot from a CD ROM. My copy of WinXP is running slower and slower with each passing day, so it's time to get rid of that puppy and install it fresh. I don't have any problems with doing that....I like fresh installs, honestly I do. I'm just trying to figure out how to do it in a simple way. Last time I ended up putting 98 on a separate partition and then installing XP on my C: partition. I'm sure that all of you can imagine what a bitch that was and can feel my pain. Afterwards I formatted the 98 partition and now use it for storage purposes only, and I don't relish the thought of going thru that arduous process again. Anyone out there got ant tips on installing XP from a DOS prompt that you would like to share? This old boy would be most grateful if you did.

Use this link to get SETUP BOOT DISKS
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q310994

Gracias Louie....many thanks

I think you can use Win2k boot disks too.

I messed up my boot record one time really bad and it wouldn't boot from CD.
When I booted to 2K disks, it gave the the option to install the OS along with the usual options.

But why would you want to use those when you now have the ones that are made specifically for XP?

I know you can use Win2k boot disks to get to the recovery console and etc.

Actually, the Win2k boot disks bypasses the security that XP uses to get into the recovery console too. Normally when you boot to the XP recovery console via CD, it will ask you for administrator password. The boot disks do not.

This is useful if you have renamed you administrator account to something other than "administrator" and need to recover something.

It will not let you enter a different account to enter recovery console. Only "administrator".

Pop in the disks and wait forever for all 4 to load and you have bypassed the authentication.

I found out this when I was recovering the MBR after a bad linux install.

Although I think Louie already gave the definitive answer, I will go ahead and share an alternative method that I've had to use in the past with some success when the CD installation wasn't feasible for whatever reason. This may come in handy for you somewhere down the road.

You can boot from a DOS floppy with CD-ROM support and fdisk/format with FAT32 as necessary, then in the i386 directory of the CD run the "winnt" command. That will copy all installation files to the hard drive, and upon a reboot the installation will begin.

One caveat, though. Be SURE you load the smartdrv.exe disk caching program first, or the file copying will take several hours.