Tablet OS clean install

[Marcus Billington]

I have a M1300 Motion Computing tablet PC. I didn't like
the way the tablet was set up from factory, so I decided
to start from scratch, fdisk the hard drive, and reload
windows. I checked with Motions support people first, they
said it would not be a problem. After I erased everything,
repartitioned the drive, and got ready to install the XP
tablet edition, I started having trouble.

I can't seem to read the cd-rom usb drive(the M1300 model
does not have a built-in cd-rom drive).

My question is this: How do you install XP over a usb,
firewire, or PC card connected cd-rom drive?

I was told that you could use a parallel connection, but I
don't have a parallel port(the tablet came with wireless
print software).

I have tried everything I can think of, including using
the 6 set floppy XP installation. Generally, this is used
if you don't have a bootable installation CD. Anyway,
after I go thru the 6 floppies I get a message saying that
the cd-rom drive can't be found.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Marcus Billington

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Please feel free to visit the TabletPC experts in the TabletPC Newsgroup:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.windows.tabletpc

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

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


| I have a M1300 Motion Computing tablet PC. I didn't like
| the way the tablet was set up from factory, so I decided
| to start from scratch, fdisk the hard drive, and reload
| windows. I checked with Motions support people first, they
| said it would not be a problem. After I erased everything,
| repartitioned the drive, and got ready to install the XP
| tablet edition, I started having trouble.
|
| I can't seem to read the cd-rom usb drive(the M1300 model
| does not have a built-in cd-rom drive).
|
| My question is this: How do you install XP over a usb,
| firewire, or PC card connected cd-rom drive?
|
| I was told that you could use a parallel connection, but I
| don't have a parallel port(the tablet came with wireless
| print software).
|
| I have tried everything I can think of, including using
| the 6 set floppy XP installation. Generally, this is used
| if you don't have a bootable installation CD. Anyway,
| after I go thru the 6 floppies I get a message saying that
| the cd-rom drive can't be found.
|
| Any help would be greatly appreciated
|
| Marcus Billington

 

[Old Geek]

The bios of your Tablet PC must be able to recognize the external CD drive,
and be able to boot from it. See if the manufacturer has a bios update.
Also, you will have to go into the bios boot options and set it to boot from
the CD 1st.

 

[Marcus Billington]

I have already gone into the bios to change the boot
order. When I set CD-rom to 1st all I get is some
unrecognizable characters on the top of my screen.

I did not see any "boot from usb device" or similar
options in the bios. Is there a way to get that option to
appear? Also, I read in another message about changing the
SCSI settings to boot from a SCSI device. Will this work?

 

[Old Geek]

See about the bios update. If you can't boot from a USB device, you are
toast. Many/most computers can't.