File "asms" required to complete XP installation

[Squaggleboggin]

My computer's been giving me all kinds of trouble, including installing XP and then booting from the CD and trying to reinstall it (it refuses to boot from the hdd). So I hooked up an old hdd to it and it boots into Windows 98, but it doesn't detect the other hard drive or the optical drive for some reason. So when I switched it back to booting from the CD first, it actually went into the Windows installation (this was a shocker because before it never did that). However, it said it needed the file "asms" to complete the installation. I told it to look in the D, E and F drives, but it hasn't found it. I then put the installation disc into this computer and searched for "asms" to no avail. Anyone have any ideas as to how I can get this file onto the computer? Is there any way to get this file from the hdd with 98 on it? Thanks.

 

[office politics]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;311755

Hard disk formatted with FAT or FAT32 file system
If the hard disk is formatted with the FAT file system or with the FAT32 file system, follow these steps:

1. Use a Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition or Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me) Startup disk with CD-ROM drivers to restart the computer.

2. Copy the Xcopy.exe tool from the Windows 98 Second Edition CD-ROM, the Windows Millennium Edition (Me) CD-ROM, or the hard disk to the Windows Startup disk. To do this, use the appropriate method.

Windows 98 Second Edition CD-ROM

Insert the Windows 98 Second Edition CD-ROM in the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, and then at the command prompt type the following lines, pressing ENTER after you type each line, where cd-rom is the drive letter of the CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive:

c:
copy cd-rom:\win98\smartdrv.exe
copy cd-rom:\tools\oldmsdos\xcopy*.*

Eject the Windows 98 or Windows Millennium Edition (Me) CD-ROM, and then insert the Windows XP Professional CD-ROM.

4. Copy the I386 folder and all its subfolders to the hard disk. To do this, type the following lines at the command prompt where cd-rom is the drive letter of the CD-ROM drive, and drive is the drive letter of the hard disk, and then press ENTER after you type each line:

smartdrv
xcopy cd-rom:\i386 drive:\i386 /e

5. Restart the computer, and then start the Setup program again.

6. When you receive the error message, click Browse, and then type the path of the I386 folder on the hard disk.

Note You may be prompted several times for the location of this folder. If Browse is not available, see the "Hard disk formatted with NTFS file system" section.

 

[Squaggleboggin]

Well for some reason after it started to boot from the other hdd, I can't get back to that screen. So now I'm just going to try to run Windows from the second hdd and store all of my files on the new one. The only problem is that the old hdd won't detect the new one when I'm in Windows. When it's starting up, it lists the newer one as the slave drive, but I can't save anything on it when I'm running 98 from the old drive. Here comes the stupid question: Do I need to have an OS installed on the new hdd in order to store anything on it? I already have the NTFS file system on it, and I'm getting nowhere with XP.

 

[office politics]

You need an 3rd party application to use 98 to write to NTFS. 98 cannot write to NTFS out of the box.

You do not need an OS on a drive to store data, but it makes things ahelluva lot easier.

To backup your data from your new hdd, your going to need to boot to a os that reads NTFS. 2k, xp, some special dos versions, knoppix.