[ltp] XP Key doesn't work!

[Dax Kelson]

On Thu, 2004-09-23 at 07:20, Norman Walsh wrote:
> / André Wyrwa <a.wyrwa@gmx.de> was heard to say:
> [...]
> | I fear one has to have a bootable setup CD in any case - or then a
> | previously boot floppy might also work. I'm not used to VMWare, i
> | thought there might be a possibility to install without booting into it.
> 
> I'm happy to say that these instructions
> 
>   http://www.4saad.com/WhatsNew/Fresh_XP_Install/index.htm
> 
> worked like a charm.

The only issue I had was that after adding all the software that I
wanted on my recover "CD" it ended up being several gigabytes in size.

No problem, "I have an external USB 2.0 DVD burner!" I thought.

The "cdrecord.exe" included in the BCD Package doesn't do DVDs, first I
upgraded it (that required a new cygwin.dll). Still no joy.

I when to Schilling's website and re-discovered that he sells
cdrecord-ProDVD support for $$ on the Windows platform (it is free for
non-commercial use on Linux, with keys that expire every 6mos). Oh yeah,
I had forgotten about that (kudos to the Linux distros for patching
cdrecord with DVD support).

I hacked on the BCD script to not delete the ISO file, and then
transfered it over to another machine running Linux, attached my DVD
burner and made myself a bootable, installable Windows XP disk plus all
the other IBM software such as the WinDVD player.

The peanut gallery should note that I use Linux on my laptop nearly
exclusively, and it was more of a learning exercise (the guide didn't
exist when I did it). Plus, having a single recovery DVD would be easier
to keep track of and help my resell value at some point in the future.

Overall I thought it was more a pain compared to doing something similar
with Linux.

Dax Kelson
Guru Labs