copying xp cd to a partition to boot?

[David101]

hey guys, i remmeber seeing a way to do this on this forum or another forum, but i've searched "boot" and "partition" as well as in yahoo, but i found all the wrogn things.

anyways, this is what i want to do: i keep having to format/reinstall windows or whatever pretty often (lol) and u know how the xp cd loads all the suff @ the beginning when you put it in. well, i figured it would load those files and install XP alot quicker if i put winxp cd on a partition i made (800 megs).

so: i got this far (lol)...edited boot.ini and pointed to partition..i used the same layout (multi(0) whatever) as my os just with the diff partition. but i don't know how to make it so it "boots" form the partition. i was reading a microsoft article at their site about the layout/format etc but it didn't seem to work..o wasn't relevant to what i wanted. so to sum uP:

***
how do i copy winxp CD to a partition and have as an option when booting, to load form the winxp cd partition (just like the cd, only alot faster)??

thanks

 

[Drec]

format, then install XP to the partition...

 

[David101]

i edited my post a bit, i re-read it and it got kidna confusing.

what i mean is, how to make it so i dont need the CD to reinstall xp. i wanna load the cd from a partition on the hardrive, instead of putting it in all the time. it will make installations faster etc etc.

thanks.

 

[ClarkKent]

I think that it would have to be the primary partition on a hard drive. So that you could tell select in your bios to boot from that drive first. Or make a floppy boot disk with a bat. file that points to your partition and the setup file. Copying the files from the CD should be fairly easy once you have partitioned your drive. Just make sure you copy hidden files. Hope this helps.

 

[mayagrafix]

I have the same problem, that is reinstalling windoze every other week. The NTLDR dll gits corrupted or whatever... my solution is to install windows on a HDD all by itself, then do a reformat and reinstall when the ntldr problem comes up.

 

[XunknownX]

Instead of just keeping a copy of XP on your HDD, why not save yourself some work and use a drive image utility.

1. Format HDD
2. Install Chipset Drivers
3. Get All Windows Updates
4. Install Sound/Video Ect. Drivers
5. Create Drive Image

Then make a drive image and store it on a seperate partition other then one that has your OS. That way if you have to format, you can jsut run the drive image and save yourself a lot of time and work.

Also, the reason I wouldn't install programs or games is because if you do, the size of the drive image increases... expecially with games. IE: UT2K4 = 6 Gigs roughly. The steps above will create a drive image that is about 2.25 Gigs.

Hope this is helpful.

 

[diehrd]

I agree with the last post EXCEPT I would make an image only after every program , update and driver was on the hard drive I was running.Including games because that way when you restore the image you can be running perfectly in about 30 minutes or less..

 

[seelk]

Any specific software to use for making HD images?

 

[MorGoth]

can't you partition it with fdisk, then copy the install files to on partition....then install it from that partition?

 

[diehrd]

Norton ghost and Partition Magic has one as well I think

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Ghost works great for me

And that is definetly the best way to do what you are wanting to do.

 

[XunknownX]

I agree with the last post EXCEPT I would make an image only after every program , update and driver was on the hard drive I was running.Including games because that way when you restore the image you can be running perfectly in about 30 minutes or less..

Ok, say he makes an image with all of his programs. And 2 months down the line, he gets a new version of a game he has, or a newer version of some software. Then, if he uses the image he made containing all of his original programs, not only will it take longer to restore his computer due to all the programs on it, but he'll have to go and uninstall the older versions and install the newer ones.

Make sense?

 

[Fightingpiper]

yea he would have to install new versions of the programs that he installed after the image was made but it sure beats reinstalling windows plus everyprogram from scratch.....

I use Acronis True Image for my Image backups....I find it much easier than ghost for backing up my hard drives.....
Also I think it can be set to peridically backup so you can have it backup nightly if you want so you wont have to worry about new programs added....

 

[XunknownX]

yea he would have to install new versions of the programs that he installed after the image was made but it sure beats reinstalling windows plus everyprogram from scratch.....

I use Acronis True Image for my Image backups....I find it much easier than ghost for backing up my hard drives.....
Also I think it can be set to peridically backup so you can have it backup nightly if you want so you wont have to worry about new programs added....

I didn't know you could set program to make periodic backups. How do you go about doing that?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

The idea of full image backups are not to keep all your new programs.... Nightly image backups are going to capture any junk hari-kari that windows attempts. A nightly would be good to pull your most recent documents from or something, but hardly worth anything as far as reinstalling the complete OS.

If you are going to create an "Installation image", you should only create it after a fresh OS install, and installing the essential programs which you do not update. I would install XP, Openoffice, certain powertoys, and some adobe apps before creating an image - all things I don't update. The other things which I update or install new versions of regularly, I could just run their installs from my data partition. A nightly image would be no good compared to this for initial installation - the whole idea is that you have a fully configured image that is perfectly fresh, no disc fragmentation, temp files scattered about, or drivers axeing eachother.