Need to reinstal XP but CD is dead

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ken Blake, MVP
  • Start date Start date
K

Ken Blake, MVP

Peter said:
My son asked me to trouble-shoot his HP Pavilion Laptop. Bottom
line-hard drive failure. So I purchased a new HD. I have the Original
WinXp Install CD, BUT, his CD-rom drive is not-responsive. This would
be a $150.00+ expense that may NOT be the extent of his problems.


$150.00+??? You can buy a new CD drive for as little as $15 or so. If the
drive has failed, it should be replaced.
 
Peter H. said:
My son asked me to trouble-shoot his HP Pavilion Laptop. Bottom line-hard
drive failure. So I purchased a new HD. I have the Original WinXp Install
CD, BUT, his CD-rom drive is not-responsive. This would be a $150.00+
expense that may NOT be the extent of his problems.

My question to this group is:
Does anyone have a suggestion to get the OS loaded on the hard drive using
something other than the internal CD-Rom?

Thanks for your time,
PeterH

Got a USB pen drive copy everything to it, then install.
Circuit CIty had 512 meg pen drives for $15 a few days ago.
 
Are you certain you installed the new hard drive correctly? Incorrectly
installed drives can pose numerous problems. Check the BIOS settings to
determine that both the hard drive and the CD-Rom are being detected. From
the BIOS set the Boot Order so the CD-Rom is listed before the Hard Drive.

If the laptop can boot a USB device you might be able to connect an external
CD-Rom device and install from it.
 
Peter H. said:
My son asked me to trouble-shoot his HP Pavilion Laptop. Bottom line-hard
drive failure. So I purchased a new HD. I have the Original WinXp Install
CD, BUT, his CD-rom drive is not-responsive. This would be a $150.00+
expense that may NOT be the extent of his problems.

My question to this group is:
Does anyone have a suggestion to get the OS loaded on the hard drive using
something other than the internal CD-Rom?

Thanks for your time,
PeterH

Is it possible to use an external USB-connected CD drive for boot? Does
it have a floppy drive or do you have a USB floppy? USB floppies are
relatively useful and relatively inexpensive.

You can prepare the drive on another system. Attach the new disk to
another system using an external USB drive case (note that 2.5" cases come
with a special 3-headed cable to provide the power needed by a hard disk).
Partition and format the drive, and then create a INSTALL folder. Use your
install CD to copy the i386 folder (at least) to the INSTALL folder. When
done, install the new drive in the laptop. Boot from floppy. If you
formatted as NTFS, you'll need the 6-floppy boot set. Navigate to the i386
folder in the INSTALL structure, and run winnt.exe. That will begin the
setup process.

HTH
-pk
 
Unless the notebook supports USB Legacy boot you wouldn't be
able to initiate the install from the Flash drive. The bigger issue is
without any optical capability you would be unable to install apps
and other items to the notebook. If the notebook is 3+ years old,
I'd scrap it and look for bargains now that Intel has dropped P4 &
Celeron prices in advance of Core 2 Duo. ~$150 to replace a CD
drive for a laptop is way too high.
 
Umm no you can't buy a new cd-rom drive for a laptop for $15. It would need
a direct replacement in a laptop which costs 150 and way on up from there
because of its proprietery design.

Now if you haven't already done so you need to enter the BIOS in the laptop
and tell it to boot from the cd rom. Also if this doesn't work then, yes
there is a way if you take the hard drive and hook it up to another computer
(with an adapter for the ide cable to the 2.5" HD) then format it with /s
switch for a bootable system drive and copy the i386 folder from the cd to
the drive then insert drive in laptop and boot into the dos prompt and
navigate to the i386 folder and run winnt.exe.

Good Luck

Joe

Kemco Technician
 
My son asked me to trouble-shoot his HP Pavilion Laptop. Bottom line-hard
drive failure. So I purchased a new HD. I have the Original WinXp Install
CD, BUT, his CD-rom drive is not-responsive. This would be a $150.00+
expense that may NOT be the extent of his problems.

My question to this group is:
Does anyone have a suggestion to get the OS loaded on the hard drive using
something other than the internal CD-Rom?

Thanks for your time,
PeterH
 
Your solution will work with one issue. A simple DOS boot will
not load a Disk caching driver, such as SmartDrive. Invoking a DOS
based install without caching will take "Forever" to finish.
 
Did you open the BIOS and set the CD Drive as the first bootable drive?
This must be done in order to boot from the Windows XP CD.

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User

Enjoy all the benefits of genuine Microsoft software:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/default.mspx

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­---------------------------------

:

| My son asked me to trouble-shoot his HP Pavilion Laptop. Bottom line-hard
| drive failure. So I purchased a new HD. I have the Original WinXp Install
| CD, BUT, his CD-rom drive is not-responsive. This would be a $150.00+
| expense that may NOT be the extent of his problems.
|
| My question to this group is:
| Does anyone have a suggestion to get the OS loaded on the hard drive using
| something other than the internal CD-Rom?
|
| Thanks for your time,
| PeterH
 
I'm glad you pointed that out my bad he will have to put smartdrv.exe on his
hard drive before moving to the laptop. And run that file before running
winnt.exe. Thanks for pointing that out.

Joe

Kemco Technician
 
Are you MVP's all just looking right over the top of the word LAPTOP? You
cannot put in a Hard Drive incorrectly in a laptop they are keyed so they
cannot go in upside down and they have only one plug in and place they can
go. You MVP's need to read a little closer.

Joe

Kemco Technician

Harry Ohrn MS MVP said:
Are you certain you installed the new hard drive correctly? Incorrectly
installed drives can pose numerous problems. Check the BIOS settings to
determine that both the hard drive and the CD-Rom are being detected. From
the BIOS set the Boot Order so the CD-Rom is listed before the Hard Drive.

If the laptop can boot a USB device you might be able to connect an external
CD-Rom device and install from it.
--


Harry Ohrn MS MVP [Shell\User]


Peter H. said:
My son asked me to trouble-shoot his HP Pavilion Laptop. Bottom line-hard
drive failure. So I purchased a new HD. I have the Original WinXp Install
CD, BUT, his CD-rom drive is not-responsive. This would be a $150.00+
expense that may NOT be the extent of his problems.

My question to this group is:
Does anyone have a suggestion to get the OS loaded on the hard drive using
something other than the internal CD-Rom?

Thanks for your time,
PeterH
 
No problem - Just wanted to make sure the OP didn't end up with
the "Why is it..." and the temptation to start over thinking something
is wrong" scenario.
 
Kemco said:
Umm no you can't buy a new cd-rom drive for a laptop for $15.


You're right, of course. Sorry. I read too fast and missed the fact that he
was talking about a laptop.
 
If you or someone you know has access to an external CD-Rom drive that you
can connect to your USB port. Then you would need to go into the BIos and let
it boot from a removable device as the first option.
hope that helps.
M.P.
 
Thanks, everyone, for the help. The laptop is a 2.8GHz P4, still in good
physical condition.
I have, indeed set the first boot device to the CD-Rom. I do not have access
to an external USB CD-Rom, but I do have a USB Hard Drive adapter so it
looks like I will attempt the load the OS from another pc. (Good Idea)
I don't mind spending the bucks for the CD-Rom replacement, but I am not
sure if that is the problem and I want to get the OS loaded to be sure, (
Actually, I do mine spending the money for a CD-Rom but, what are you going
to do?)

Thanks again,
PeterH

PS I'm not sure how a pen-drive would help if there is no OS to read the
drive. I doubt you could get winXP on a 512 PenDrive
 
Peter,

Very important here! You DON'T load the OS from another computer. With
Windows XP if you load the software while it is connected to another computer
it will recognize its Motherboard and your install will not work on the
laptop. The pendrive will work because you load a bootable DOS system on it
and load the i386 folder from the CD-Rom. Also download smartdrv.exe and put
it on as well. This will all fit on a 512MB pendrive. Now this will work if
you use a pen drive or you use an external hard drive or the laptop hard
drive. Then you put the hard drive into the laptop or connect it to the usb
port set it up to boot from the proper device in the BIOS and run the
smartdrv.exe program and then you run the winnt.exe from the i386 folder
which is the same as booting from the cd. Good Luck

Joe

Kemco Technician

P.S. Sorry if this jumps around a bit I was helping a customer in the middle
of it and tried to make it all jive together.
 
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