What didn't work: Network installation

In theory, you can install Windows NT over the net, from ntsww1. When I tried it, I got as far as the screen asking for an ID number, which I didn't know. In any case, this is how it is supposed to work:

Boot off another hard disk

Get the clone hard drive from Christopher and carefully install in into the NTpak as the primary drive (on the right-hand side. Take your own drive out and place it into the UltraBay (Instructions). Use the hard disk holder that the clone drive was in.

Power-on the computer. It's probably a good idea to make sure your floppy drive and Ethernet connection are plugged in first.

Connect to the network

Mount the ntsww1 file server by selecting Run from the Start menu and entering:

\\ntsww1

As your user name enter eecs\, as your password, enter the password you have set up on the departmental NT system.

Connecting to the network

Mount the ntsww1 file server by selecting Run from the Start menu and entering:

\\ntsww1

As your user name enter eecs\, as your password, enter the password you have set up on the departmental NT system.

Installing NT

Run winnt32.exe with the /b option for a floppy-less installation

\\ntsww1\Clients\Winnt4\NetSetup\winnt32.exe /b

The installation program will copy a large number of temporary files onto the c: drive, and then reboot the computer to run the setup proper.

In the second phase of the setup, use the default configuration that setup detects for the computer. When it asks you where to install Window NT, follow the instructions to delete all partitions on Disk 1 (your disk), and then to create a new partition. Choose NTFS when setup offers to format the disk.

Note: the Windows NT Disk Administrator program can be used to reformat a disk to NTFS. It does not work -- Windows NT setup will need to reformat the disk anyway.\, so don't waste time with Disk Administrator!

After rebooting again, you get into the graphical part of the setup program. This is where it wants to know a 10-digit ID code, which, for some mysterious reason, no-one seems to know is required, let alone what the fuck it might be. When I asked Scott Hernandez, this is what I got:

don't run winnt32 run winnt. any way you can use all ones. I don't remember any right now. or you can try 421 and all ones....skot

Maybe I should have run winnt instead of winnt32 -- to do so, however, would mean that I would have to boot the machine from Windows 95 in the first place, not Windows NT.

Booting off floppies

I haven't tried this and I don't intend to... Here's what Scott Hernandez sez:

there aren't necessary any "network floppies" per say. what there is are dos network disks, and a dos boot disk. after you get on the network you can connect to the server and install nt. It is actually very simple but since it must be done for each network card there isn't a general network floppy.
my suggestion would be to get your OEM network disk, a dos boot floppy and the dos network disks(\\ntsww1\clients\MSCLIENT). Then book from the dos disk, format, partition etc... to the drive. The boot dos from the hard drive, install the network disks and get connected to the network. then connect to \\ntsww1\clients (net use * \\ntsww1\clients) and go to the \winnt4\netsetup dir and run "winnt /b" to setup nt without the bootup disks. This will copy all temp install files to the local machine, it will reboot with nt setup, then ask some question, then it will reboot to gui setup, ask some more questions, then you're done.

Wanna try it? Good luck! (Note: you won't be able to use this method to build a machine with a single NTFS partition, since DOS can't run on NTFS.)