Cannot get WIN2K to install

[leoblob]

I have a "new" i1452 and I am trying (unsuccessfully) to load WIN2K onto it. This is the sixth install of WIN2K I've done on various computers, so I don't understand why I'm having a problem here.

The hard drive is blank and formatted. I booted from a WIN98SE boot floppy. I put the CD in the drive, ran i386\winnt.exe, and it proceeded to copy all the files over. When done (2 hours later), it then started to "install" the OS. It asked where the i386 folder was, and when I told it to look on the hard drive, it couldn't find it. So I told it to look on the CD and it proceeded to remove all the "temporary" files on my hard drive (which it just spent 2 hours putting there).

So I stopped it, formatted the hard drive again, and via XCOPY copied the entire CD onto my hard drive. So with that completed, I again ran i386\winnt, (this time its on my hard drive)... and again, it's copying the files (this time from my hard drive) onto my hard drive (and still in the process of this copying as I post this). What is going on here? I'm six hours into this and I still have zero to show for it.

Thanks.

[jdhurst]

The "i" series generally ran Windows 2000 just fine (I had two 2611-410 "i" series machines that I converted). The way I have done legacy ThinkPad conversions to Windows 2000 is to obtain the Windows 2000 setup disks. This is a setup file available from Microsoft that creates about 4 diskettes (I can no longer remember the name of the file or the number of diskettes). Find the file (search for Windows 2000 setup disks), download it, run it to create the diskettes. Then boot the "i" machine from the first diskette and it should all work.
... JD Hurst

[Nolonemo]

The copying the files from the hard drive to the hard drive is what normally happens when you do what you're doing (I've done this type of install on legacy machines a number of times). It takes a real long time because there's no drive caching/acceleration going on (I'll bet you got a warning that smartdrive wasn't installed or active). Just let it run its course, and eventually you should get to the next part of the install.

[leoblob]

Yes, I let it finish copying from the hard drive to the hard drive and when it asked to re-boot, this time the install proceeded correctly. So now I have WIN2K running on this i1400. Seems to work pretty well (256MB RAM). I don't know why my earlier attempt at installing didn't work, as that's how I've done it before... but I do suspect some type of user error.

As for boot disks, I remembered www.bootdisk.com and they were going to be my next step if I was still stuck.