Resolved Compaq nx5000 - "Multibay" question

Hi masonite, I've got a Compaq Presario 1700 with the multibay. I have a DVD unit, a CD R/RW unit and a Floppy drive which will all plug in to the bay as needed.

I also have an old Compaq Contura 410C which has floppy drive and PCIMCA slot only. When I bought this a few years ago it had no operating system message on the screen and would only run off the charger as the battery was dead.

I purchased a larger capacity HD on Trademe and an IDE adaptor. I set it up on my Desktop and after a bit of a play around I managed to install Windows 98 to the HD.

I then put the HD into the old Contura and it worked. I have just checked it is still functioning and I had to update the Date/Time on it.
This was my learning piece and if you know anyone who wants an old Compaq 410C - let's know.

I don't know whether this will work for you, but it might be worth a trial.
Cheers Neil.

 

Hi Neil. Your experience is interesting. I wasn't aware of the existence of the Multibay device until this situation occurred. I'm sure you'd sell the Contura on TradeMe - I'm always getting asked for used laptops.

Actually, Windows 98 was quite flexible as far as installations went, particularly via DOS. It's still quite handy to have around, especially if you have a passion for some old DOS or 98 game.

I've got a kind of multibay IDE system on my three workshop (desktop) computers. The base "cradle" fits into a CD bay and the "insert ", which holds a HDD, fits into the cradle. To change systems you just slide an insert into the cradle, boot up and you have another OS running. I have about a dozen inserts that I use as required; Win 98, 2K, Vista, Win7, plus 4 or 5 XPs for virus checking or experimenting with new programs. I've even got one running a 2.5" laptop drive via a 3.5" to 2.5" adapter. It's a very handy system and a good way of getting some use out of the old HDDs that I keep accumulating from broken systems.

I also have a number of different USB adapters, some of which I've been using for this last troublesome project, trying to install XP onto this CD-less HP laptop.

Then last night I had a "light-bulb" moment. Why not connect an old IDE CD drive (I've got a pile of those, too) to the laptop via a USB to IDE adapter? DUH...

So that's the project for today. Can't see why it won't work, so long as the laptop BIOS doesn't have a problem with the CD drive.

Cheers

 

Well..the only excuse I can come up with is senility

My 'light-bulb' idea worked perfectly, and I really don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.

All I had to do was format the laptop hard drive back to bare metal, which is the same state as a new hard drive. (A drive in this state is seen by partitioning software as "unallocated ").

I connected an old IDE CD drive to the laptop via a USB-to-IDE adapter, dropped in the XP Pro CD and away it went. The bare XP installation works fine; all it needs now are the proper device drivers (audio, gfx, wireless etc) which I'll transfer over via a CDRW disc. I'd use a LAN cable but the laptop doesn't know it has a LAN yet.

Thanks again to all who made helpful suggestions

 

Hi masonite, I have trouble with light bulbs now and again so I use Eco-friendly ones now. It's also called "Senior Moments ".
Glad to see you saw the "light" and have had success with your customers problem. Cheers Neil.