Installing Win XP on laptop without floppy or cd-rom

Is it possible?

I have found various links for 98/ME but none for XP.
I have just bought a compaq armada M300 for a song, a nice small light laptop of a couple of years old, but the OS is all messed up and needs reinstalling, when I bought it, it came with a external USB CD drive, but this is not bootable.

I do have a special IDE cable that allows me to mount a laptop hdd to a desktop mobo, and I was wondering if by doing this, it might be possible to copy over all needed setup files, and somehow get it to run the installation once it was back in the lappy

Does anyone know if this is possible?

Thanks

Chris

 

With the drive hooked up to a PC I would resize the current XP partition to leave free space for a new partition to install Windows to. Then copy the entire XP CD to a folder inside the current Windows. Put the hard drive back in the laptop, boot to Windows and run the setup from the CD folder and point it to install on the free space.

Now this would give you a dual boot setup with the old and new Windows. There would be various ways you could go from here but it could get a little technical depending on the final setup you wanted.

Resizing XP partitions is never 100% guaranteed and should always be done from the top down "“ that is to leave the free space at the end of the hard drive. Before attempting it you should make an image of the drive so that if it won’t boot when back in the laptop you can restore to the original setup.

 

Hi.

Changing Partitions isn't a problem, and I've dual booted for many years going back to two 98's with a boot manager so i know most of the problems associated with them.

One problem is the current OS doesn't boot, it's on a continuous BSOD/Reboot loop just as it starts loading.
That's why I was wondering if after the setup files have been copied to the hdd with it connected to the desktop, there were any ways to make the hdd boot into DOS? I have never had to do this before but with no floppy or bootable cd I need the start up files to load from the hdd.

I did find an article on Win98 that mentioned it could be done, i'm going to see if i can find that again.

What I actually intend doing on the laptop is to try and get to know Linux on it! but as I know Windows a lot better, I thought I’d get that working first!!!

 

Suggest you just hook up the drive to your desktop, temporarily disconnect the cables from your other drives, and put in the windows CD. It should boot (or fix the BIOS so it does) and allow you to repartition the drive and install windows to one (the first, or C) of several partitions

 

Not really, but it is old, if I can get it working without spending a lot of cash - then that is preferable, otherwise it's not cost effective to do it.

Chris

 

You could try installing Win98 on the hard drive allowing only the generic drivers to load on the first partition and copy the WinXP CD into a folder on the second partition. The laptop will probably run that way so you can do the install of WinXP. I have loaded Win98 this way before then installed the drive on a different PC with little problems.

 

Sparrow’s idea is worth a shot if you turn off the computer at the first reboot during the Windows install and at that point move the hard drive to the laptop. On boot up it will continue the install, but of course at some point it will need access to the CD to complete. If your USB CD drive is recognised then fine, but I don’t know if it will be, so before you start the install create a second partition on the laptop hard drive and copy the CD there, then point XP to it when it asks for the path to the setup files. Of course this second partition may also not be recognised as it may not be mounted at the necessary point in the install.

The other option is to create and format the XP intended partition on the hard drive before you start the install, put the CD on this partition in a single folder, then tell the XP install to keep the partition and file system intact. This way when you get asked for the path to the setup files you should be able to point to them in that folder.

Whiskyman’s 98 idea also sounds good, but it will depend if the generic drivers installed for the PC will let 98 boot to the desktop in the Laptop. Of course one of the three ideas above for access to the CD setup files could also work for 98.

 

Was thinking copy the windows i386 folder to the HDD after partitioning into 2-3 partitions (disks) and then replace it in the laptop and install there. Just needs DOS on C: to boot the laptop. Can then cd to the i386 folder and run the install from there. Not sure how to get drivers if windows doesn't have them (it might). If not, they may have to be downloaded to the desktop and the disks switched again to load them to the laptop before installing. Certainly not impossible.
If XP won't cooperate, then stick with 98.

 

That's exactly what I tried last night - and it works - to a point.
By formating the hdd with the /s switch, and making the partition active it will boot to a C: prompt on the laptop.
So I copied over i386, booted it, and ran winnt.exe.
It copied all files at the beginning of setup and then hung. when I rebooted it said setup could not continue as it could not find the EULA.

I will try later on with the cd files on a 2nd partition - I think I will also start looking for my old 98SE disk!!

Regards

Chris

 

Sounds like the i386 folder is insufficient; maybe needs the whole CD on the hard drive? Or the message is irrelevant, as many are.

Reread, and see you main interest is Linux. You'll have to do a similar install, and why not just do it now and not bother with windows? A free Linux won't require an EULA!

 

Well for years I have thought that I would like to give Linux a try, and having played around with Knoppix on my main machine recently I thought I'd bite the bullet.

But. I am a total n00b with Linux, and thought it might be best to get an OS that I know better working on a partition first, because the lack of cd/floppy on this machine is going to cause me much hair loss until I get it up and running on my network to share one!

If however you know different, and it might be much easier to get Linux up and running without a cd or floppy that I would be happy to hear your advice

Regards

Chris

 

A free CD is available at http://www.ubuntulinux.org/, or if you have dsl or cable you might download an .iso file to burn to a CD, but that'll take over an hour to download. There are lots of other .iso files available but not many other free CDs. You can add the linux later just as easily.

Installation would be the same: copy the CD to a folder on the HDD of the laptop and put it back in place to run the install.

 

See if anything here will help.

Compaq Armada m300 Notebook PC series manuals

Armada M300 Family, All Models software and drivers

Also check your Bios options. F10 should give you the boot menu and fn-F3 should access the Bios.

 

Thanks for all the help, I now have 98SE all working and online via wireless, and now starts my Linux education!!

Chris

 

Congratulations, and best wishes for a linux (happy) holiday!

 

Hm. That's a new and interesting one. Had not even thought about installing Win XP on a desktop without cd rom and here we are talking about a laptop . Frankly don't have the faintest idea right now if it can be done, because Win XP needs the original cd media or floppies to boot.