Creating the Installation Diskettes for Windows 2000

Materials:
Working complete PC
Blank Diskette
Student Diskette, "New Boot A Ver 2.0+"
Student CD-ROM, "Room 6359"
Objectives:
The student will become familiar with:
The nature and function of the Windows 2000 Setup diskettes,
How to create the Windows 2000 setup diskettes.
Competency:
The student will become familiar with the Windows 2000 operating system setup diskettes and how to create these disks in order to use them to start a setup on a system without a CD-ROM drive, or one that cannot boot or to start setup on a failed system in order to launch the Recovery Console.
Preparation

The bootable OEM installation CD-ROM for Windows 2000 loads a text mode "minikernel" version of Windows 2000 that will proceed to lead the user through the initial installation of itself on the hard drive. This minikernel is also available on diskette, but it is larger than a diskette so four 1.44MB 3½" diskettes will be needed. The utility for creating these Windows 2000 installation diskettes which only contain the minikernel and no actual installation files is found on the OEM installation CD-ROM. In the case where a name brand OEM PC is delivered with Windows 2000 preloaded on the hard drive and a Recovery CD-ROM is provided, then more than likely the utility that will create the original setup disks will not be found. So the other tools needed for this exercise will be an actual Microsoft OEM Windows 2000 Installation CD-ROM

The only practical value of these diskettes is that they will launch the recovery console. This can be quite useful if you do not actually own a legal OEM copy of Windows 2000. This does not mean that you cannot obtain these diskettes for the purposes of attempting to repair your legal "image" on your name brand PC.

The other reason that you may need these diskettes if you are attempting to repair or install Windows 2000 on a system whose ATA controller is a 3rd generation or older and does not therefore feature integrated ATAPI.

Windows XP does not include the setup diskette creation utility on the OEM CD-ROM but the utility can be downloaded from Microsoft. There are different versions of the diskettes for each version of Windows XP (Home, Professional, etc) All of the individual download pages can be accessed from Knowledge Base Article 310994. Windows Server 2003 does not have setup diskettes at all.

To create the setup diskettes in Windows NT insert the OEM install CD-ROM and switch to the I386 folder and execute: winnt /ox However, Windows NT 4.0 does not include the Recovery Console, this is new to Windows 2000. The Windows 2000 Recovery Console can be installed and works on an NT 4.0 system, this will be tested and then added to this tutorial.

Procedures
  1. First insert the Windows 2000 installation CD-ROM and close the autorun window that opens (or hold down the [Shift] key as you close the CD-ROM drive door to prevent the autorun window from running). Now click Start > Run > Browse and browse to the BOOTDISK folder in the root of the CD-ROM drive. Double-click on the file MAKEBT32.EXE then click the Run box OK button.

  2. This opens a DOS box and the program prompts for which drive to write the floppy disk images to. Insert the first of your four blank and preferably scanned 1.44MB 3½" floppies into the A: drive and press the [A] key. The program will begin to write the first diskette to the floppy. When it is ready it will prompt you for the next one, then the next until done. Here it is working on the second disk of the set:


    ****************************************************
    This program creates the Setup boot disks
    for Microsoft Windows 2000.
    To create these disks, you need to provide 4 blank,
    formatted, high-density disks.

    Please specify the floppy drive to copy the images to: a

    Insert one of these disks into drive a:. This disk
    will become the Windows 2000 Setup Boot Disk.
    Press any key when you are ready.
    100% complete.

    Insert another disk into drive a:. This disk will
    become the Windows 2000 Setup Disk #2.
    Press any key when you are ready.
    / 25% complete.

  3. When complete properly shut down and restart the system and boot to the first of the four diskettes. The familiar beginning screens of the Windows 2000 installation that starts when booting to the CD-ROM will ensue. As each of the other diskettes is needed the screen will display the prompt for them.

  4. Once completely loaded and the Windows 2000 minikernel has launched, choose Repair. In the Repair screen choices choose use Recovery Console. At this point the recovery console will start and prompt you for which installation to repair and if it detects a good registry it will prompt you for the Administrator's password then leave you at the C:\WINNT prompt. At this point type EXIT and remove the diskettes.

Back to Top

Copyright©2000-2004 Brian Robinson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED