boot from NT4SP6 CD

December 1, 2006 11:04 AM

Please don't ask why, but I want to install NT on a spare box I have lying around. I have the NT4.0 SP6 disc, which includes (I believe) the NT4.0 installer. In what way should I burn the installer onto CD so that the box will boot from it?

Also, there's two installers on the disc, both named winnt32.exe; one's in a folder named alpha, the other in a folder named i386 - what's the difference?

posted by The_Partridge_Family to computers & internet (7 comments total)

The folder named alpha is for machines based around the DEC Alpha CPU, I386 is for Intel chips, like the 386, 486, Pentium, etc. It is not at all likely that you have an Alpha machine lying around, use the I386 installer.
posted by curse at 11:19 AM on December 1, 2006

If you have an NT4 with SP6 disc, you should be able to boot directly from that CD - just put it in and go. If your disc is actually SP6 for NT4, you can't produce a bootable NT4 disc from it, regardless of the way you burn, since the system files just aren't present.
posted by pocams at 11:26 AM on December 1, 2006

Does the disc only have the Service Pack? The SP by itself won't allow you to install anything, it'll only allow upgrades to a pre-existing, installed copy of NT.
posted by owenkun at 11:27 AM on December 1, 2006

It's the "NT 4 Service Pack 6" disc. If I put it in an XP box, an html page autoruns, at the bottom of which it says,
"What Else Is On This CD?
...
The files required for installing a new copy of NT 4.
Open \Support\Winnt32 folder"

That's why I'm assuming the information I need is on the disc.
posted by The_Partridge_Family at 11:35 AM on December 1, 2006

Yeah, it's unlikely that that SP6 disc has the full system installation on it, just service pack 6. Microsoft was very fond of throwing those discs around -- I seem to remember that you cold go online and request literally hundreds of them, and they'd drop 'em in overnight mail to you gratis. An old coworker and I might have done mischievous things with such numbers of discs...
posted by delfuego at 11:37 AM on December 1, 2006

"NT 4 Service Pack 6" - I do not think that is the "full install" disk.

Do you have a PC around? Sounds like it. Toss it in and boot. The NT 4 Workstation installer CDs are bootable.
Chances are the disc you have won't boot, because it's most likely just a SP CD.
posted by drstein at 8:01 PM on December 1, 2006

I could be wrong but I don't believe Microsoft released NT 4.0 and NT 4.0 TSE discs with service packs slipstreamed into the disc. I've never seen one at least. I do know that with Windows 2000 and higher, there's a huge difference between discs that say "Windows 2000 SP4" and "Windows 2000 with SP4".
posted by bda1972 at 11:41 PM on December 1, 2006