Installing W2k on a crippled Laptop?

[GenIV]

here's a challenge for you guys.... I can't figure it out myself.

I got a P200mhz mmx laptop. currently running Win98 and is bloated with junk and running like crap and crashing alot. (FAT 32)

It has:
Thinkpad 520
200mhz mmx
96 meg ram
2 gig HD.
Floppy
(Pcmicia 100/10 NIC)
NO CDROM


Is it possible for me to somehow install Win2k on the system and switch the filesystem over to NTFS?... all I got is a floppy and a Network card. no cdrom.

How would the performance the system be? with Win2k on 96 meg ram?

[jib]

if its really bloated, a 2gb disk may nto be enough?

only thing i can think of is to share the 2k CD over the network, and then install over the top of 98 via the network. Once 2k is on you should be able to convert to NTFS quite easy.

Thing is, if the machine is full of crap, then ideally you gonna want a clean install... not sure how to do that to be honest, although there must be an windows remote install procedure....

[SkyDog]

You could create a DOS boot disk with network drivers for your card. Then boot to that floppy and access the Windows 2000 source files via the network. That way you could do a clean installation.

Option #2 would be to temporarily move your Thinkpad's hard drive to another system that does have a CD-ROM drive. Copy the I386 folder from the 2K CD to the hard drive, then move it back to your Thinkpad and run the setup program (WINNT.EXE) from DOS. If you don't have another laptop handy to swap the hard drive into, you can get an adapter for a couple of bucks that will let you install a 2.5" laptop hard drive into a desktop system.

As for the performance of Windows 2000 on that system... Personally, I wouldn't recommend it -- mostly because of the 2 GB hard drive.