How to speed up WinXP instalation

Hi I need to speed up instalation of Windows XP. I heard that SMARTDRIVE.EXE can do this, but I don´t know how should I execute it before instalation. Can someone help me? Thanks

1. This is only needed if you install XP from DOS
2. From a Win98 machine, create a boot disk, copy SMARTDRV on this disk also
3. Boot up from the floppy, Choose CD support if you're installing XP from the CD
4. run SMARTDRIVE from the floppy
5. run I386\WINNT.exe from the CD
6. The whole process should take about 30-40 minutes, without SMARTDRV, it's much, much slower

I only wanted to know how to speed up copying instalation files from CD to HDD. You konw that blue screen with yellow progress bar and message "copying instalation files". It takes too long time for me

What speed is your CD reader?

24x

rudvard wrote:

Hi I need to speed up instalation of Windows XP. I heard that SMARTDRIVE.EXE can do this, but I don´t know how should I execute it before instalation. Can someone help me? Thanks

There are many ways to do this depending on your needs.

If you look at the OEM Preinstall Kit, you can find ways to make a drive image for a specific hardware platform that will ask for registration key, or you could put it in before hand.  Drive images copy fairly rapildy over the network - you can even use demo versions of Ghost to get it done.

It is one of the simplest things to do in Ghost but because it has so many features it is of course the hardest thing to find in their documentation.

If you really do this frequently, you might consider buying an extra $40 HDD and Ghosting your windows drive over to it once you have a clean install. 

These all work well if your not using 120 day eval software.

You also need to be using the same hardware (motherboard vid card, etc).  There is no supported way to do this on different hardware yet.  (I think I remember hearing this will be an Avalon strength)

If you are wanting to speed up installs for fixing friends computers... I wouldn't recommend it.  Licensing issues aside, they generally are better of loading the recovery CD enclosed with their system.  If you want to upgrade their P800 that came with Windows 2000 to Win XP.... thats a painful process generally because of the low quality hardware vendors use (Well just about everyone but the rare few like Aleinware) and has very few rewards at the end.  I'd recommend they buy a new Dell for under $500.

So if you give me more details on waht you're trying to accomplish I might be able to help you more.

Hope this helps....

rudvard wrote:

24x

Nice 52x

On my computers it takes only about 1 minute to copy those files.

Beer28 wrote:

If you don't have a winXP with sp2, you can slipstream sp2 or any other service pack into a bootable win install CD using this method

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html

I've done this before and it works. Not for SP2 but for other versions. It can save you alot of time on updating after install.

That was useful. I didn't know you can do that!

Hey, I'm trying to develop a backup plan (development, Web, SQL). What are you using and how do you like it.

SATA drive can help.  I was recently amazed when I did a HW upgrade and OS re-install with XP at how fast it went...my first box with a SATA-150 drive.  It seems like it took half as long as usual.  From now on not more (p)ATA.

Are you using IDE hard drive and CD-ROM?  If so, are they on the same IDE bus (master and slave) or are they each on their own bus (primary and secondary?)

I'm getting a little out of my depth here (hardware is not my strong suit...) but I believe it is faster to copy from one bus to another than it is to keep reversing the direction of flow to copy from one location on the bus to another location on the same bus.

Is this a "format the drive first" kind of install?  If not, what is the capacity of your drive, and how full is it?

Yes, I always format my partition when I am going to install Windows. I have notebook and my disc (ATA 100) ano combo (ATA 100, Ultra DMA/33) are on the same IDE . Maybe Homer have right, it's time to upgrade . It looks like, that I must to conciliate, that instalation Windows on my PC takes over 40 minutes

Ah, a same-IDE-bus issue...
Is it possible to boot from a USB-connected CDROM drive?  Or a USB floppy?

It might even be worth looking into burning a CDROM image of the startup floppies, and booting from that... then putting the XP CD in a USB-connected drive, to avoid the necessity of switching the IDE bus back and forth.

Or perhaps go the other way - install XP from the built-in CD drive to a USB hard drive, then use Ghost to image the USB hard drive over the built-in IDE.  You might have to modify the boot.ini if you do it this way.

rudvard wrote:

Yes, I always format my partition when I am going to install Windows. I have notebook and my disc (ATA 100) ano combo (ATA 100, Ultra DMA/33) are on the same IDE . Maybe Homer have right, it's time to upgrade . It looks like, that I must to conciliate, that instalation Windows on my PC takes over 40 minutes

If its always the same machine then ghost could change your installation to about 20 minutes.

Just make a three gig system drive and install all your program files somewhere else.

Do you have another machine you could use to keep a multi-gig image on?

Yes, I have one more machine with enought free space. Could I have this image also on DVD or CD's and then copy it on my disc during the "instalation" ?

I'm not sure about DVD, but recent versions of Ghost are capable of archiving directly to CD-R, spanning as necessary.