Win2k laptop installation

[pyrofenix]

I have a Toshiba Portege 3110ct (has a floppy disk and a CD that I can't get to be recognized - even when I had win98 running on it).

Anyway...since I can't get the CD to be recognized, I copied the contents of the CD to the laptop hard drive by putting the drive on my desktop computer.

Now, I have the contents of the win2k CD on the laptop drive and attempted to use the windows bootdisks to install the OS but that didn't work...when it goes to install, it looks for a cd drive but finds none (duh) and won't let me choose a location to boot.

So now i'm stuck...and am looking for assistance!

I appreciate any help you can give.
Tim

[GretaP]

Hi pyrofenix,
If you have access to a computer running WIN98 or WINME, create a startup floppy disk from that computer, and, once done, copy the SMARTDRV.EXE file from the C:\Windows directory to the startup floppy disk.
Boot from the startup floppy disk, and at the A: prompt, key in:
smartdrv
<ENTER>
Back at the A: prompt, navigate to the i386 directory that should have been copied to the hard drive when you copied the contents of the WIN2K install CD. When you're at the prompt for the i386 directory, key in:
WINNT
<ENTER>

This can be done without the SMARTDRV file on the startup floppy disk (which means, obviously, that you can't invoke SMARTDRV), but it will be PAINFULLY SLOW if you run the install without SMARTDRV

[pyrofenix]

Alas, no I don't have a machine running either 98 or me. Only another win2k box and XP.

I do have a win98 bootdisk - thanks to bootdisk.com

[GretaP]

Yes, the bootdisk from bootdisk.com will work fine. And I found a site from whence to d/load smartdrv.exe :D
Go here (http://www.earnhart.org/ben/misc/Clean%20installation%20of%20Windows%20XP%20from%20 a%20Windows%2098%20boot%20disk.htm) , and click on the link in item (2
Copy to or d/load the file directly to the WIN98 bootdisk you have.

[pyrofenix]

Hey, thanks alot! I'll give that a try!

[GretaP]

You're very welcome! Let me know how you fare with it.