This is my first XP install after a long and exhausting software nightmare that forced me to keep Win 98SE until the old software could be replaced in its entirety.
Coming from the Win 98SE environment I would like to make a true SINGLE floppy startup disk for Win XP Pro that allows me to partition and format my drives in NTFS format BEFORE installing the OS from the CD. So far, I have NOT found a solution I can believe and would like your advice whether my conclusion is correct that this is not possible in NTFS - here is what I found:
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html#bootdiskThere you get guidance for a clean install of XP, one of the segments reads as follows:
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Another option to the floppy disk set from Dr. D's
Windows XP System Setup Disk - Look for bootdisk essentials
Allows you to boot from a single floppy disk, partition and format the drive and then begin the XP installation from CD
Note: A lot of people appear to be unaware of the fact that you do NOT need the 4 or 5 setup disks in order to install Windows 2000 and XP. A common Win98 boot disk such as the Boot Disk Essentials diskette below can be used to install these OS's. This is what the Win XP System Setup Disk above does.
Here's how to do it:
Start the computer with your chosen boot disk.
Change to the cdrom drive.
Go into the \i386 directory on the cdrom.
Run WINNT.EXE to begin the install process.
The above was copied from Dr. D's web site.
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But this is basically senseless, because I have over 10 such Win 98SE startup disks with all these files laying around and my PCs are all bootable from CD ROM. To simply boot the PC with a floppy and then go to the CD ROM drive, therefore is the same as having booted from the CD ROM drive, if your PC can boot from a CD ROM drive.
What I would like to do is to independently from a single floppy and NOT from Win XP Pro format and partition my RAID drives as one C: drive, but fdisk only offers FAT16 and FAT32 options, NOT NTFS, which I would like to be able to create independently first, and install Win XP Pro afterwards.
Reading the ASUS motherboard manual, XP requires the same insertion of a driver floppy to recognize the Promise RAID chipset as 98SE does, hence, at a first glance there seems no architectural difference, with the one exception I am trying to ascertain here: Windows 98SE can be installed after the Promise RAID utility has made the 2 or more RAID drives into a single C: drive via fdisk, which allows to partition, allocate space and a choice between FAT16 and FAT32.
The only way to do this in steps would be if I can use fdisk in this manner, create a FAT32 RAID volume and use XP Pro during the installation to convert that FAT32 volume to NTFS. But I am not a great friend of conversions or of installing a clean OS onto some FAT32 RAID volume that still has Windows 98SE on it.
My ideal way of doing things would be to wipe all this by creating a vanilla RAID C: drive in NTFS, followed by a vanilla install of Win XP Pro. Please, advise, if this is simply not possible from a single such boot floppy.
Alternatively, please, advise what in your opinion is an alternate way that comes closest to the vanilla separation standard I have been using for years, where I started with blank, formatted and partitioned drives and then performed a completely unquestionable vanilla install.
A secondary consideration would also be SPEED - it is my understanding that XP Pro formats MUCH faster than fdisk ever did with FAT32, hence, if the step that wipes everything that was there before is reliable, then the standard way of installing XP Pro with NTFS is anyway the only option and my questions are senseless - please, advise.
Thank you very much in advance.
Bernard
