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kikkoman · Mar 23, 2006, 03:31 PM

i have an old dell subnotebook that currently has 2000 installed on it. i would like to erase the hard drive because it's got a bunch of crap on it. problem is i no longer have the cd or floppy drive the machine came with. it has a usb port but does not supporting booting i guess because it's too old. what are my options?

Dark Helmet · Mar 23, 2006, 03:34 PM

Find a windows CD image online and burn it?

Spliffdaddy · Mar 23, 2006, 03:54 PM

Buy a 2.5" to 3.5" hard drive cable converter so you can pull out the laptop hard drive and install Windows from a desktop PC. Then install the 2.5" drive into your laptop. It would probably be a good idea to copy all the files from the Windows CD onto the hard drive, as well - since you'll have to sort out the Windows installation in the laptop...because it was installed in a different computer. You might get lucky and Windows will 'fix' itself by loading the correct drivers and whatnot - or it might just boot into a pretty blue screen of death - leaving you back at square one.

Your only other option would be to get (or borrow) a PCMCIA cdrom - which would be bootable. A USB drive won't boot.

Most laptop CDROMs of that era are fairly generic. Perhaps you can find a CDROM that fits your laptop. Even if it lacks the proper mounting bracket or tray door - it should still plug in and function until you get Windows installed. I've seen generic laptop CDROMs for under $20 on eBay.

kikkoman · Mar 23, 2006, 03:55 PM

Originally Posted by Dark Helmet

Find a windows CD image online and burn it?

The laptop does not have a CD or floppy drive. No other way to boot expect from the internal hard drive.

turtle777 · Mar 23, 2006, 04:10 PM

Originally Posted by kikkoman

what are my options?

Put that harddrive into a laptop / PC with a CD drive and put the system on there.

-t

olePigeon · Mar 23, 2006, 04:34 PM

Won't you get a Windows Protection Fault?

Spliffdaddy · Mar 23, 2006, 04:52 PM

maybe, maybe not.

It worked about half the times I tried moving a Windows installation to another computer.

Have you ever noticed that nearly all Linux installs can be moved to another computer - without any fatal errors? never seen one fail to boot.

olePigeon · Mar 23, 2006, 04:55 PM

Originally Posted by Spliffdaddy

maybe, maybe not.

It worked about half the times I tried moving a Windows installation to another computer.

Have you ever noticed that nearly all Linux installs can be moved to another computer - without any fatal errors? never seen one fail to boot.

And OS X. That's one of the biggest things I missed about moving from OS X from my last job to Windows here at my work. With OS X, we could set up the entire campus in an afternoon. One disc image for OS X would work accross all computer from B&W G3s to, eMacs, iMac G5s, and even PowerBooks.

With Windows? No. I have to create a disc image for every different brand and different configuration of PC here. It takes the better part of 2 months to image all the computers accross campus.

kikkoman · Mar 23, 2006, 04:57 PM

ok i got the hard drive out of the old laptop. i put it into a usb hard drive case. attached the hard drive to a newer laptop and then selected the usb drive to install windows on. the installer copied some files to the usb drive. put the hard drive back into the old laptop. attempted to boot but it can't find the nt loader? also on the newer laptop is trying to boot off the usb hard drive which is now disconnected. boy did i mess things up. what now?

residentEvil · Mar 23, 2006, 05:21 PM

network install. i do it dozens of times a day.

Spliffdaddy · 05:31 PM

Originally Posted by kikkoman

ok i got the hard drive out of the old laptop. i put it into a usb hard drive case. attached the hard drive to a newer laptop and then selected the usb drive to install windows on. the installer copied some files to the usb drive. put the hard drive back into the old laptop. attempted to boot but it can't find the nt loader? also on the newer laptop is trying to boot off the usb hard drive which is now disconnected. boy did i mess things up. what now?

Maybe I should have explained the procedure a bit more clearly. oopsie.

let's fix the 'newer' laptop first.

OK, it seems that you should have removed the hard drive in the 'newer' laptop and replaced it with the hard drive from the laptop that you wanted to install Windows on. The problem is that the bootloader resides on the internal hard drive of the 'newer' laptop (the C: drive). When the laptop powers-on, it's looking at the C: drive for boot information. ie; where Windows is located. You power it on, it looks at the C: drive, and the C: drive tells the computer to go to the USB Hard drive. Because that's the last thing you told Windows to do.

The easy way:
To fix the bootloader on the 'newer' laptop - boot from the Windows CD (whatever version the 'newer' laptop was running), proceed with first part of the Windows install until you get to the part where it asks you if you want to repair a previous Windows installation. Highlight the Windows installation folder and enter 'yes' or 'next' or whatever. The machine will reboot. If you pull the CD out of the CDROM at that point, you can interrupt the 'repair' (and save yourself an hour because all you want to do is repair the boot record...and it just did that, without telling you). If the laptop doesn't have the Windows CD when it reboots, it can't continue the 'repair' - so it dumps you off at a menu screen that includes 2 choices. One is "Windows Setup" and the other is "Windows". "Windows is what you want - it's your original Windows folder. You will boot into the old familiar Windows installation. Of course, everytime you reboot, its going to try to continue with the Windows 'repair' - soooo, You need to go to 'Control Panel/System/Advanced' and there a tab named 'startup and recovery' which will let you choose the default startup options. "Windows Setup" will be listed first. Change that to "Windows", and it'll never try to load that again. You can delete the "Windows Setup" listing altogether if you want.

To fix the 'older' laptop:

Completely remove the hard drive out of the 'newer' PC, and sit it somewhere safe. Install the hard drive from the 'older' laptop into the 'newer' laptop. Boot from the Windows CD and completely install the OS - exactly like a fresh install. Don't try to use the USB hard drive adapter.

When it's finished installing, use Windows Explorer to copy the entire contents of the Windows CD into a folder on your hard drive (you might need some files later). Then, power off and swap the hard drive back into the 'older' laptop. Cross your fingers, and see if it boots.

olePigeon · Mar 23, 2006, 05:33 PM

Originally Posted by residentEvil

network install. i do it dozens of times a day.

You're assuming he has a server and his laptop NIC isn't too old that it doesn't have a PXE.

kikkoman · Mar 23, 2006, 05:41 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

You're assuming he has a server and his laptop NIC isn't too old that it doesn't have a PXE.

i do have a 2003 server and the laptop does have an option to network boot in the bios. i didn't consider that an option as i just assumed it would be hassle to setup RIS just to put xp on a single machine. maybe not?

ghporter · Mar 24, 2006, 08:40 AM

Considering the hassle you've already had with messing around with the hard drive, I think installing from the network would be much simpler. You don't have to netboot; just copy the install CD to the hard drive (into a separate directory, and preferably a separate partition) and run the install from there.

olePigeon · Mar 24, 2006, 10:37 AM

Originally Posted by kikkoman

i do have a 2003 server and the laptop does have an option to network boot in the bios. i didn't consider that an option as i just assumed it would be hassle to setup RIS just to put xp on a single machine. maybe not?

Seems good to me. I don't think you're going to be able to copy the OS from computer to the laptop.