If it's a .torrent, it's just a pointer to be loaded into your BitTorrent client so that it can find the servers to download the actual file.

A Windows XP boot floppy could mean one of two things. One, you want to install XP and you don't have El Torito to boot from the CD-ROM, so you have boot floppies instead (is that even supported in XP? more of an NT 4 thing to me). Perhaps you should use WINNT.EXE instead to bootstrap the installer from DOS.

The second is, it's possible to copy ntldr and boot.ini to a floppy to have a "boot disk" for NT based Windows, but it's coupled to the machine it came from and is just a pointer to which hard drive partition from which to load the kernel and supporting files.

When it comes to XP, it's not just one single floppy. You have to have several to load, and it'd be up to a bare NT console window (with the intent to recover XP installations)

Is talking about this even allowed here? It's unclear if the torrent is about a boot floppy (is that considered legal to download?) or the complete disk image of Windows itself (the OP never mentioned the contents of the torrent). Also, be careful, as governments could be tracking you if you use torrents (mine does I think, remembering from a few years back when I still used them, including related software (remember the whole popcorntime debacle?)).

Torrent is around for 25 years now. So pretty much everyone should at least know what it is.

I'd expect that you can explain what a torrent is, how they work, and how to set up a client to make use of torrent files.

It might be somewhat shadier to link to specific torrents though, but nobody has done that in this thread.

A torrent file would just have a pointer to the torrent on the internet .. it's not something you could boot.

If you want to put XP on a system, the best way is to get a .ISO for and create an XP install CD (assuming the system you want to install it on had an optical drive)
- You might be able to make a bootable USB from it also

XP is "old" enough that there *might* have been a distribution available on multiple floppy disks (or perhaps you could create them from the install CD - I've really not looked at this is a long time)

I just dug out a WInXP install CD and looked through it.

The included SETUPXP.HTM has this within:

"1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD/DVD drive (or insert the first Windows XP Setup boot disk into the floppy disk drive)" ...

So it looks like XP was available on floppy disks - although I see no mention of, nor obvious way to create said floppies from the content of the CD.

I doubt they are still available from Microsoft either...

EDIT: I just found this link to Microsoft site: http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/8/9/ … ootDisk-ENU.exe

Which is said to create a set of 6 floppy disks to install XP.

But the link is dead! (as expected)

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 11:38:

I just dug out a WInXP install CD and looked through it. […]
Show full quote

I just dug out a WInXP install CD and looked through it.

The included SETUPXP.HTM has this within:

"1. Insert the Windows XP CD into your CD/DVD drive (or insert the first Windows XP Setup boot disk into the floppy disk drive)" ...

So it looks like XP was available on floppy disks - although I see no mention of, nor obvious way to create said floppies from the content of the CD.

I doubt they are still available from Microsoft either...

EDIT: I just found this link to Microsoft site: http://download.microsoft.com/download/a/8/9/ … ootDisk-ENU.exe

Which is said to create a set of 6 floppy disks to install XP.

But the link is dead! (as expected)

They are PE disks - That is, they have enough on the disks to start the windows XP preinstallation environment and also have a bunch of additional drivers for various storage controllers. It still requires an XP CD-rom to complete the 400-600MB installation.

NeoG_ wrote on Today, 13:02:

... have a bunch of additional drivers for various storage controllers. It still requires an XP CD-rom to complete the 400-600MB installation.

Yeah, I that makes sense - I was thinking of earlier Windows which could actually be installed from floppy on systems without optical!

Turns out that being a digital "pacrat" I apparently kept a copy of the MS tool to create the 6 boot floppies for XP Home!

I was able to extract the floppy images from it, and I am surprised at their useage of space. Looking at their content I don't see any obvious boot files (I would have expected something like DOS with NTFS support)

I suspect NTDETECT.COM (45k) and SETUPLDR.BIN (238k) - both on Disk1 are what actually launches and does the install.

---

Each disk has the usual 16,996 bytes "system" data (DIR+FATs etc) = 101,376

There are 219 files totaling 6,577,152

There is 2,168,832 bytes of free space

Totals 8,847,360 / 6 = 1,474,560 (exactly the raw size of 1.44m disk)

This means it could have easily been 5 disks, and depending on compression and "wasted stuff" on the disks, might even have gone down to 4!

---

But given that it still needed a CD, I'm still surprised that it needs 8M worth of "drivers" on floppy, presumably needed drivers could have been lifted from the CD (granted you'd need a CD driver to do that - but 8M? - why not support standard IDE and SCSI devices and "stick in a floppy with your CD driver" for anything else? Since they obviously wrote the installer and preceeding PC OSs, they should have been able to "talk to" drivers that could be used by those OSs during installation and gotten "XP" ones from the CD for final running.

But then again - we are talking about MS!

superfury wrote on Today, 09:04:

(the OP never mentioned the contents of the torrent).

It was archeves or something like that cant remember now

superfury wrote on Today, 09:04:

Also, be careful, as governments could be tracking you if you use torrents (mine does I think, remembering from a few years back when I still used them, including related software (remember the whole popcorntime debacle?)).

how is that then?

jakethompson1 wrote on Yesterday, 21:34:

If it's a .torrent, it's just a pointer to be loaded into your BitTorrent client so that it can find the servers to download the actual file.

Probably not going to work and just a scam. probably best forgeting about it then
But thanks for letting me know

kixs wrote on Today, 09:30:

Torrent is around for 25 years now. So pretty much everyone should at least know what it is.

and dose that include the man on the moon?

Robbbert wrote on Today, 10:52:

I'd expect that you can explain what a torrent is, how they work, and how to set up a client to make use of torrent files.

It might be somewhat shadier to link to specific torrents though, but nobody has done that in this thread.

sorry I can remember now it was yesterday i downloaded it. I still have the file but I can upload it hear

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 11:18:

A torrent file would just have a pointer to the torrent on the internet .. it's not something you could boot. […]
Show full quote

A torrent file would just have a pointer to the torrent on the internet .. it's not something you could boot.

If you want to put XP on a system, the best way is to get a .ISO for and create an XP install CD (assuming the system you want to install it on had an optical drive)
- You might be able to make a bootable USB from it also

XP is "old" enough that there *might* have been a distribution available on multiple floppy disks (or perhaps you could create them from the install CD - I've really not looked at this is a long time)

It was an idea I had about getting my USB memory stick to boot windows. I copied it from the HDD but it wont boot

Im from Windows wrote on Today, 16:37:

DaveDDS wrote on Today, 11:18:

A torrent file would just have a pointer to the torrent on the internet .. it's not something you could boot. […]
Show full quote

A torrent file would just have a pointer to the torrent on the internet .. it's not something you could boot.

If you want to put XP on a system, the best way is to get a .ISO for and create an XP install CD (assuming the system you want to install it on had an optical drive)
- You might be able to make a bootable USB from it also

XP is "old" enough that there *might* have been a distribution available on multiple floppy disks (or perhaps you could create them from the install CD - I've really not looked at this is a long time)

It was an idea I had about getting my USB memory stick to boot windows. I copied it from the HDD but it wont boot

What exactly are you trying to do? Im confused by reading this thread