Four years is a very long time in the life of a laptop. In
human years your laptop is about 40 years old. You can
replace the internal hard drive, you might be able to update
the BIOS to allow booting from an external drive, but you
should start saving for a new machine.
--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.
message
| Thanks for the swift reply. The more detailed question
concerned whether the
| Microsoft boot-up disks contain USB or Firewire drivers
which would allow
| access to the external CD, and you've answered that one.
|
| But now I seem to be stuffed (serve me right for buying a
cheapo notebook
| from T**E ) My notebook is 4 years old and getting
cranky, and the HDD is
| filling up with junk I'd like to get rid of. The internal
CD drive has a
| mechanical fault but the external drive is fine.
|
| The 'recovery CDs' which came with the PC (don't tell
me..., I know now!)
| seem to contain an image of the original installation.
Boot from the floppy
| T**E sold me and no external CD is recognized - boot from
the HDD, run the
| restore program from the external drive and the error
message below appears;
|
| 'Failed to retrieve requested MBR - this process is not
intended to be used
| on this computer'
|
| What does the Master Boot Record have to do with it? A
botched attempt by
| T**E at copy protection, or what?
|
| The answer to all of this is of course to contact the
original seller - but
| we are talking about one of the biggest PC sellers in UK
who are famed for
| their non-existent after sales service. I have contacted
them (no repy!) so I
| assume I am on my own here.
|
| Sooner or later something will crash my PC and I will
have to reinstall XP
| Home. I've given up on the current installation and would
be happy to buy a
| new version if there is a way of getting it on to my PC.
One suggeston in
| the forum is to copy the install CD onto a new partition
on the HDD and then
| boot from there. Will this work, and if so, can you point
me in the direction
| of articles that might lead me through this?
|
| My worry with booting from the HDD, starting up Windows XP
and attempting
| to run the new XP Home install CD from the external drive
would be that I
| reformat my HDD and then everything stops - no OS and £150
out of pocket!
|
| Thanks if you've read down this far. I don't know much
about computers but I
| learn fast . Any suggestions would be welcome.
|
| Pete
|
| "Carey Frisch [MVP]" wrote:
|
| > Windows XP can only be installed on an internal drive.
| >
| > --
| > Carey Frisch
| > Microsoft MVP
| > Windows XP - Shell/User
| > Microsoft Newsgroups
| >
| > Get Windows XP Service Pack 2 with Advanced Security
Technologies:
| >
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/windowsxp/choose.mspx
| >
|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| >
| > "Pete Clark" wrote:
| >
| > | Can I use the microsoft floppy disks to boot from my
floppy and then clean
| > | install XP Home from CD on an EXTERNAL CD drive? My
internal drive has a
| > | fault but the OS still thinks it's OK. Alternatively,
can I start up my
| > | current XP OS and run a clean install from the
external drive?
| >
