I have a P-3 Fujitsu B series lifebook: 20GB HDD, external USB CD-Drive, NO 1.44FDD
The HDD has two partitions. How can I install an Operating System? The BIOS gives boot options for HDD, legacy FDD, bootable add in cards. Any help is much appreciated.

Hi there and welcome to PCHF, which OS are you trying to install? A soon as i know that i can move this topic into the correct forum.

Hi there mate, if the bios does not support the only method to install is a bit of a pain but there is a way.

Do you have a way to connect the hard drive to a PC (You will need a 2.5 to 3.5" IDE adaptor or a 2.5" external enclosure)? as this is pretty much the only way we can get the setup files on to the hard drive.

I wish to install Windows 2000. Yes, I can remove the HDD & connect it to my desktop.

Sorry, I forgot to ask, does the system have a floppy drive?

It doesn't, that's the problem.

Hey, sorry about that, I had a phone call.

Ok, I'm going to assume you have a floppy drive on your main PC.

1. Power down and connect the hard drive as a slave with your adaptor
2. Format the drive as FAT32 (we will fix this later but for now it is a must as it's all that dos can write to)
3. Copy the i368 folder to your newly formatted drive
4. Download the application to create a windows rescue floppy here
5. Put a blank floppy in the drive and create the boot floppy
6. Power down and and boot from the floppy without CDROM support
7. From the floppy run "SYS DRV:" (Without the quotes, DRV being the letter of your drive, such as E:, you can check which drives are there by doing a "if exist DRV:\ echo exists" again without quotes and replace DRV with the letter you want to check)
8. Copy fdisk.exe, Himem.sys, Config.sys and smartdrv.exe to your drive
9. Turn off the computer and return the laptop drive to the laptop
10. Boot from the hard drive in the laptop
11. run smartdrv /X (just to speed things up a bit)
12. run cd C:\i386 and run WINNT.EXE
13. During formatting make sure you select 'Keep current filesystem intact' otherwise it will try to format the XP installation files which will lead to you doing this all over again

It's a bit long winded and time consuming but if you have any quesitons or need assistance on any of those steps, let me know and I'll assist as much as I can

Hope this helps

-Lebowski