Resolved Trying to Install Windows XP - No CD Reader and No USB Boot Access

I am trying to build a Windows XP recovery partition onto a new hard drive for a laptop. The original HDD is damaged beyond any software/hardware repair so a new drive is needed. There is no CD device and the USB's ports will not boot any attached devices. I cannot change BIOS to select USB as someone/something has set a password.

I have removed the CMOS battery and left overnight but the password remains - must be eeprom based. To test things, I have copied my HP Recovery partition across to the new drive and it allows a rebuild - clearly no good as it fails as expected in configuration.

I want to effectively kick-off the Windows XP CD setup to build the system. Is there a way of loading an OS to then boot the installation from a copy of the CD placed on the new HDD??

 

Read in the User Guide/manual for the computer. I know that Acer computers are using passwords for going into BIOS (low-level) controlled applications, for example, running a recovery reinstall of Windows. Check if you can use a default password, that is, the password has not been changed from that listed in your User Guide. If not, you might need to take it to a Service Center to get the password reset.

If a CD/DVD drive has not been supplied, look at the User Guide or manufacturer's website for how you boot to some other form of drive. BIOSes are different from one computer to another, we can't guide you at the boot level, only that you have the boot drive selected before the HDD and that drive is actually bootable.

Matt

 

Hi Mattman unfortunately no manual either! An online one from MSI (Advent is rebadged Wind U90 I believe) does not offer a password which is why I think it has be set by someone or something (a Virus is likely). A Service Centre visit will cost more than the laptop. What I want to attempt is to create a harddrive that will be boot with anything - perhaps DOS or Linux or ....) and that will then enable me to initiate setup.exe from a copy of the Windows XP Install CD that I can transfer to another partition on the same drive. Any ideas/suggestion?

 

I have found that copying the recovery partition to a new HDD, swapping the HDDs, then running the recovery system is the easiest. That does not mean just copying files, you need to "clone" the recovery partition to the new HDD.

If you want to try running the Windows XP installation, you might get to the end and find the notebook manufacturer does not offer a full set of drivers for download, you can only get the proper drivers from the recovery installation.

To run an MS installation, I would choose running it from an external HDD rather than a memory (thumb) drive. You will need to make the drive bootable and as far as I am concerned, it is a lot easier to make an external HDD bootable at present.

Have you looked at the boot options in the BIOS? You will need to be able to boot to some sort of USB drive. Different BIOSes offer different boot options.

Can you beg, borrow or steal an external CD drive? You could buy an external CD/DVD drive, although in my opinion, you could have purchased a notebook with a built-in drive to begin with... I suppose space-saving is a factor. Consider getting an external CD/DVD drive, it will probably be useful in the future (especially in this situation ), but as I said, if you install MS Windows you might not be able to get the manufacturer's drivers.

Maybe not, take it to a centre, ask if the tech can look at it for you, put on your best "sad face ", it might only take a minute for him/her to fix it (otherwise get a quote) . The password will be for ownership authorisation, can you take ownership documentation with you?

Matt

 

Hi Mattman, Many thank for the detailed reply. One key problem is that the BIOS is stuck with a password so I have had to work with that in mind. I pushed on with the answer being to setup via a new HDD - installed a DOS FAT32 partition and DOS system, copied WINDOWS NT CD across along with SMARTDRV. I have now managed to rebuild base WINDOWS NT!. I have found a number of drivers on the Advent TECHGUYS site so hopefully they will activate other components. The network IC is ok so I am currently downloading the 1,000,000 updates and SP3

With this base I can now run a BIOS flash to update and zap the password!! and install decent virus software!!

 

Thank you for the info. Haven't come across SMARTDRV for a long time Good old FAT32 eh? At least you can use DOS utilities. I am concentrating on NTFS because Vista and Windows 7 can't be installed on FAT32, you won't get away with it after XP

PS If you get everything working, don't forget to mark the thread Resolved.

 

Resolved

And finally.. converted FAT32 to NTFS in two steps (two partitions) to complete the process. Plenty of downloads but all now seems to work. Now for that recovery backup