Why upgrading of windows XP in HP MINI is interesting? HP mini 311 HD is a laptop which does not have CD or DVD drive. Here comes the worst case scenario where your mini doesn’t have CD or DVD and it crashes. If you know about XP installation you will know that it is not possible to install XP without a CD drive.
Requirements:
All you require is a USB drive which will work as a CD drive by copying the setup files for XP and converting it into a boot file. Also you need a computer which is needed for converting the USB into a boot file.
There is a special application which is call Bart Pre-installed environment software to complete the process of changing the USB drive into a boot-able drive
Downloading and unpacking SP2 installation package:
Copy the contents of you XP CD in another computer, Download and unpack SP2 installation package and integrate it to copied contents.
To unpack run windowsXP-KB985456-SP2-ENU.exe –x , where x is the location to save the unpacked file.
Integration of sp2 setup files:
Integrate the servicepack2 setup files to contents of the XP CD.
C:\winservicepack2\i386\update\update.exe /integrate: c:\location of the contents of XP CD
I mentioned about the Bart PE boot builder before. Install it in your computer which is used for preparing the boot file.
Unpack PE2USB and save it in a folder. This deletes all unwanted files in you USB while building the boot disk.
Making a boot disk:
Now we need to prepare the USB drive for booting. For this we use the RAMDISK feature of windows 2003SP1 for early booting as USB port will not reset.
- Unpack windows2003sp1 and save it in the local drive. Copy the folder i386 from the server2003 SP1 to the folder where you have PE2USB.
- To unpack Windows2003sp1-KB234567-SP1-ENU.exe –x. where x is the location.
- Copy and expand RAMDISK.sys in the server service pack by using command below.
- Expand –r. e.g. c:\location of server2003sp1\i386\ramdisk.sys –c:\location of PE2USB
- Open PE builder from the start menu. It will be available as you have installed it before. Locate you windows XP service pack files. Set the output to BartPE and build it. Copy the setup files in your USB drive.
Make sure that you change the first boot device to USB in you HP mini bios setup. So your BartPE should load. Make sure that your hard drive is partitioned properly.
When you have done everything correct the setup screen will launch and you will be able to see the xp launching.
