I was reading the post about installing xp without a floppy or cd and I got curious if it can be done
The post was never really answered
It's just connecting to another computer that has a floppy or cd so that's not much of a challenge
I am not even sure why go into the process of installing ms-dos if a cd is available. Just boot from the cd and install xp on the hard drive connected
I was wondering if it would be possible to make a slave drive bootable one from a dual boot xp system for example

Sure you can make a slave drive bootable...but whether you can use it is a whole different thing.

Slave is kind of a misnomer. In computing terms all it really means is another drive attached to the same cable plugged into the same controller. It is actually more on the terms of primary/secondary than master/slave. but since there were normally two controllers ...primary and secondary... the master/slave aspect took over. so in reallity it is primary controller with primary(master) and secondary (slave) devices and then secondary contoller with primary (master) and secondary (slave) devices...see the confusion LOL

The controller found and used the devices as to which connector they were plugged into on the cable starting with the end connector (primary/master) or the middle connector (secondary/slave) and so it goes that it was too slow and came up with a better/faster proccess to do the job...SATA in which all devices connected are primary/masters.

Getting back to my original statement...if the slaved drive is USB connected then the answer is yes it can be made as bootable but only if the motherboard supports the booting from a USB external port. If it doesn't then the USB slave cannot be made bootable. (actually it still can but the boot aspect would be useless)If it is internal then yes it can be made bootable...within protocols....windows will only allow 4 bootable devices period...it is a fixed thing within windows boot management program.

If it is Esata connected then it is not a slave drive but a master drive and can be made bootable but again only up to four bootable drives per operating system.

The way to get around the 4 bootable drives is by using a third party boot manager that hides the boot records.

Hope that helps answer your question!

Thanks for the reply
I was more interested in the regular ide hard drive setup
To be more specific I can make a slave drive bootable from xp but perhaps I should have used another word for bootable
What I meant was to make the slave drive a system drive
Like when I boot from the windows 98 startup floppy I can type sys c: and make the hard drive bootable to the command prompt and I can also use the format c: /s from the hard drive to do the same thing to a slave drive

I am somewhat new to xp so I am not too familiar with it but I tried those things and those commands are not used in xp
The other problem I see is that xp doesn't seem to have a dos command prompt it's only available in safe mode so that means that xp cannot be installed from the command prompt unless a windows 98 boot disk is used
Keep in mind that I am trying to see if the post about installing xp without a cd or floppy can be done

I was wondering about a third party boot manager but I am not sure how would that work
Would that have to be installed on the primary drive or the slave ?

[QUOTE=status1;13760]Thanks for the reply
I was more interested in the regular ide hard drive setup
To be more specific I can make a slave drive bootable from xp but perhaps I should have used another word for bootable
What I meant was to make the slave drive a system drive
Like when I boot from the windows 98 startup floppy I can type sys c: and make the hard drive bootable to the command prompt and I can also use the format c: /s from the hard drive to do the same thing to a slave drive

I am somewhat new to xp so I am not too familiar with it but I tried those things and those commands are not used in xp
The other problem I see is that xp doesn't seem to have a dos command prompt it's only available in safe mode so that means that xp cannot be installed from the command prompt unless a windows 98 boot disk is used
Keep in mind that I am trying to see if the post about installing xp without a cd or floppy can be done

I was wondering about a third party boot manager but I am not sure how would that work
Would that have to be installed on the primary drive or the slave ?QUOTE]

Xp does not have or use DOS it utilizes a simulated Dos prompt for certain commands and that is all. That is why the MSDOS program must be installed as the tutorial says. Now to save you some time.....the tutorial works if you follow the directions as stated and not try to jump ahead and ignore the steps as given...

Third party boot managers are the only way to go as for as I am concerned. It is the simplest and easiest option on installing dual boot operating system options. You will still need the installation discs or a way to install the operating system to the desired drive/partition.

Third party boot managers work by hiding/blocking the boot files of the installed operating system from being used until one actually needs to boot from that system...in so doing it overrides the 4 bootable drives protocol built into windows and allows you to boot up to a couple of hundred operating systems (some boot managers are limited) and you must use the new boot manager to set-up the partitions for you.
The installation of the boot manager can be installed to any drive and it will automatically set up all drives that are installed or that will be installed.

Once the boot manager is installed then you are prompted to boot to which operating system (if installed) or to install new operating system to what drive/partition! It is performed as though the installation drive is the only drive to install to as all drives and partitions are hidden during the new installation. You have to install all drivers as in a new installation and all programs to each operating system....the files can be shared between operating system as in a regular dual boot set up.

"Xp does not have or use DOS it utilizes a simulated Dos prompt for certain commands and that is all. That is why the MSDOS program must be installed as the tutorial says. Now to save you some time.....the tutorial works if you follow the directions as stated and not try to jump ahead and ignore the steps as given..."

I understand that but it's kind of missing the point of installing xp without a cd
I mean if the cd is available and the laptop hard drive can be hooked up to the computer why go to the secondary step of installing ms dos ?
Why not just boot from the cd and install xp directly ?

"The installation of the boot manager can be installed to any drive and it will automatically set up all drives that are installed or that will be installed."

So you are saying that I can install the boot manager to the slave drive and therefore the slave drive will have control over the primary drive ?

Does the boot manager affect the windows boot ?
What happens if I take the slave drive out ?
Does the boot manager go with it ?

You cannot install windows XP or any later windows versions on a drive connected to one computer , remove the drive and insert it into another computer and expect it to work. It is not like Windows 98 where swapping harddrives is permissable. In XP it doesn't work! There are certain checks that are performed during each boot that must match the record from the original installation...if there is no match XP shuts down and must be re-installed and re-activated because of the violation. This also happens if you swap out too many parts from the original computer, as XP monitors the ID's of certain (10 different items) hardware and if the ID's do not match the checksum then it shuts down and must be re-activated.

With that in mind the CD is used solely for copying files to the Dos partition and then the harddrive is replaced so that the installation can be performed on the actual computer it is to be used on.
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When the boot manager is installed...it is placed within the 8MB lead-in space available for micro data on the front of all harddrives and partitions. Once installed the program is migrated to all other active partitons and harddrives so that if one drive fails the other drives can still be used to boot with. Depending which boot manager is being used then one can actually have a cloned drive reinstall the operating system and be back up and operational in a mater of minutes with minimum loss of data instead of hours reinstalling everything!
As to having control over which drive...the boot manager controls that and not the drive even if it is put on an active slaved drive. Upon boot the BM reads the available drive/partition options and asks which you wish to boot to. So again the terminology of master slave does not exist only the indentity of the bootable operating systems installed at time of boot...meaning that drives can be completely removed and switched and reinstalled so long as the operating system (XP) was installed on that computer...Multiple installations of XP is possible.

In fact I have 3 different XP installations (all have their own COA as by the EULA) They are stripped down installations because each are used solely for a single purpose...Movie making, Photo editing, gaming
I then have windows 3.1, windows 98 & 98SE and 2000 pro that I use for beta testing programs and installations. The newer operating systems like Vista and windows 7 beta are on seperate computers all together!
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The third party boot manager does not affect the boot files of any of the operating systems. What it does is hides the ability to see that it is a bootable drive/partition unless selected to boot. This way all boot files remain intack as when they were first installed....no editing required or needed.

This is what also allows the drives to be removed and your other boot options are still available unless they were also installed on the physical drive that was removed.....you do not have to have seperate drives. multiple partitons work just as well.
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This is what I use:
Bootit NG from terabyte unlimited
TeraByte Unlimited :: Boot Manager :: Partition Manager :: Drive Image :: Disk Copy :: Drive Wipe :: Hard Drive Utilities
It is a paid for third party boot manager that you can try fully for a trial period before you have to pay for it but it will shut you down and force you to pay or remove the program.

This program has many other options that I use for repairing and re-installing operating systems that others do not have or use. It will allow up to 200 devices to be installed as long as you have the controllers to use that many. ...it is a bit technical for using and installing but once installed is quite easily navigatable....prefered time out boot options, password protected drives and partitons are just a few of the many options...but hqas the program Image for windows built in for back up and cloning.

I have beta tested the GAG program
GAG, the Graphical Boot Manager
and find it very user friendly and includes password protection options and prefered timeout boot options. It limits the use of only 9 operating systems to be installed though......for a free program it is really quite decent and works similar to Boot itNG!
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"You cannot install windows XP or any later windows versions on a drive connected to one computer , remove the drive and insert it into another computer and expect it to work. It is not like Windows 98 where swapping harddrives is permissable. In XP it doesn't work!"

Wow ! That's intersting That's something I did not know .I didn't realize windows xp is that much different then windows 98
So you are saying that if for some reason I have to replace or I want to upgrade the motherboard I have to reinstall windows ?
Xp cannot detect and install vew hardware like windows 98 ?
That doesn't sound good to me
I thinl I will hold on to windows 98 a while longer

I was thinking of trying the GAG, the Graphical Boot Manager but if it cannot be swapped to a different pc then it probably won't do me any good

Just out of curiosity would xp have the same problem of not booting if it's installed in a different computer if it's installed on drive d and windows 98 is on drive c ?
In other words if I take the drive that is dual booted with windows 98 and xp
and install it in a different computer I would be able to boot with windows 98 but not xp withut reinstalling it ?

1) yes, replacing the motherboard devalues the hardware check and will cause the operating system to not work and need to be reinstalled and re-activated....although there is an option that will allow to bypass the re-activation but only if you follow the proccedures using Sysprep exactly.

2)Actually XP plug and play qualities are much better than 98...installing new hardware is not the problem...it is the ant-piracy hardware validation checks that are the issue...

3)In a dual boot situation that you describe The answer will be that 98 may not boot either...In dual booting XP with other operating systems and using the Microsoft boot manager then there are certain proceedures that must be followed.....
(A) the oldest operating system must be installed first...then xp can be installed
(B) The boot manager will use the Master Boot Record of XP and overwrite the MBR of 98 in the dual boot installation and the validations are somewhere in between so that 98 may not boot either......I have never tried it and am not 100% sure on that part but the XP will not boot in any case!

In the same scenario using GAG then you could pull 98 and hot swap it to another system at any time using GAG or to a new single boot system....not to a dual boot with M$ boot manager though. XP is not swapable.

"it is the ant-piracy hardware validation checks that are the issue..."
What anti-piracy hardware ? The motherboard ?
Someone is actually making pirated motherboards ? How can windows xp tell if it's pirated or not ? What business is it of Microsoft to know what kind of motherboard someone is using ?

I originally had windows 98 and then added windows xp to make it dual boot
I don't see why xp would check the hatdware before the boot menu it doesn't make any sense That means that even if I remove xp I will still have the boot menu and xp will be checking the new motherboard even though it no longer exist as an OS

I will try to make that experiment this weekend
If windows 98 doesn't work then xp is worse than I thought and I probably wont use it too much

answer
To be more specific when activating XP it detects your hardware configuration., how much memory - hard drive size etc. and component serial numbers. Then ties those configuration details to the unique activation of that install.
This is not to tell if your are using pirated hardware. But to tie only one Windows key to only one computer (to prevent multiple installs and piracy of Windows keys). If the too much of the hardware is changed from the original activation, it will make you re-activate online or calling MS to explain the hardware discrepancy.

Product Activation section on Wikipedia

Although there is a workaround, Sysprep

Sysprep - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia