Dell Laptop No DVD Drive, Installing XP

[Freaky]

Hi Guys i have a dell laptop that has no DVD drive in it, i have no idea if it will boot from USB stick or not and its crashed so needs formatting and xp installed again. IF it will boot from usb drive is it just as easy as copying all the files from the xp disk to the flash drive???. and if it WONT boot from usb flash drive then wot other options do i have??? any thoughts really appreciated guys Cheers

[TotallyRandom]

you will need to create a bootable flash drive then copy the files from there.
http://www.bootdisk.com/

to the boot to it Power on laptop Press F12 select Bootable USB

Is the laptop under warranty? PM me the tag will check if you want

[Swiss Tony]

Hey freaky, if you can't get it to boot from USB, I have a drive I will lend you it's an external Dell one if you want ?

[jaguar982]

I had same prob had to buy a dell external it would not do it any other way

jag

[funkyg]

Is there a bay to insert a drive into? I can let you have a DVD drive out of a Dell laptop if that's any good to you?

[Mr.James]

Download a copy of nlite and make a bootable USB flash drive using your XP install CD...

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/windowsxpusb

I've booted from USB and installed XP from it on many dell PCs

[Over Carl]

Quality - never realised nlite could do that - last time I had to do this, I made a custom msdos boot floppy that contained usb drivers (I put it on blaggard's in case it's any good to anyone else).

As I'm guessing it was in usb 1.1 mode, installing literally took hours. Dunno how many as I went to bed.

[Freaky]

sorry guys i totally forgot all about this thread and only just saw all your replies

thanks everyone, and thatnks for the offer to lend a drive swiss tony, and thanks to funkyg aswell for the offer, but it didnt have a bay anyway, it just had no dvd drive period, thats really brilliant of you guys to offer it really is

but when i posted this i was supposed to be getting the laptop to fix the next day, but they didnt bring it so fuck them, tossers lol

thanks again guys

[philo]

You dont need a bay, you can hook them up with a cable

[Freaky]

ive actually just got this laptop tonight and tried booting from usb drive, but i thought all i had to do was copy the contents of the windows cd to the flash drive LOL.

went to that bootdisk.com but it just lost me, and that nlite thing just went over my head lol

[Freaky]

i have another dell laptop with a dvd drive, is there any way at all i could connect the other dell dvd drive to this one??

[Raptor]

fyi USB dvd drives are pretty cheap to buy

plus you can install over NIC also

[Freaky]

fyi USB dvd drives are pretty cheap to buy

plus you can install over NIC also

cheers rap, i saw the install using onboard nic in the boot list but nfi how to use it, i think id need the laptop to actually be able to boot wouldnt i??.

i also have another laptop sata hd and external caddy i could have used but since pissin about with it formatting it to wbsf or whatever the wii uses, after that its fucked wont format at all and ive tried everything.

im getting a 2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter and going to try it via connecting it to my pc, but yeah usb external dvd drive is the best option

Cheers

[Over Carl]

If you wanna try the bootdisk route - I've prepped a bookdisk and left a copy on blaggard's ftp. All you will need to do is boot off floppy with the usb plugged in and it will detect as another drive. If you have your windows cd on there you can install from there. Be warned, as I mentioned earlier, it is slow.

[Freaky]

i havent got a floppy to boot OFF m8

i put the xp on a usb drive last nite with boot files, typed setup and it said this cannot be run in dos

[MsDG]

If you have a usb external 3.5 HD, you can take it apart and hook up a normal PC CD/DVD drive to it... It works great

I do this all the time with my ide 3.5 HD

[DejaVu]

Why is everyone using the long winded way to make USB bootdisks?

It's simple. Do this on another machine with a DVD/CD draw and the Windows Vista / Windows 7 CD in the drawer.

You need to open Command prompt with Admin rights.

Then type these commands -

CD d:\boot
(where d: is your DVD Drawer)

then type
bootsect /nt60 e:
(where e: is your USB drive)

Boot from USB in your BIOS. Easy. Done it this way loads of times! Have a 4GB stick with Win7 on it. Installs in about 15 minutes from it. Definately the way forward!

[Freaky]

Why is everyone using the long winded way to make USB bootdisks?

It's simple. Do this on another machine with a DVD/CD draw and the Windows Vista / Windows 7 CD in the drawer.

You need to open Command prompt with Admin rights.

Then type these commands -

CD d:\boot
(where d: is your DVD Drawer)

then type
bootsect /nt60 e:
(where e: is your USB drive)

Boot from USB in your BIOS. Easy. Done it this way loads of times! Have a 4GB stick with Win7 on it. Installs in about 15 minutes from it. Definately the way forward!

this SOUNDS easy lol but i just tried it and when i type it in IT wont do THE CD COMMAND THING, IVE DONE THIS BEFORE SO KNOW HOW TO DO IT BUT ITS JU7ST HAVING NONE OF IT, IT WONT EVEN CHANGE To ONE OF ME OTHER HARD DRIVES, shit sorry about caps cant be arsed typing all that out again lol, so doing the cd d:\ or any other drive letter just isnt working at all, and yes i am doing it with admin rights

@dirtygirl, i aint got an external dvd drive or id have done it by now

why is everything so fuckin hard for me, and why did it tell me the xp setup cant be run in dos mode last nite

thanks everyone for the replies

[MsDG]

@dirtygirl, i aint got an external dvd drive or id have done it by now

No ya plonker... I said external HD drive (as in hard drive)

If you take em apart, you can take out the HD and plug in a normal pc DVD drive... hey presto instant external dvd drive

[Freaky]

No ya plonker... I said external HD drive (as in hard drive)

If you take em apart, you can take out the HD and plug in a normal pc DVD drive... hey presto instant external dvd drive

i know exactly what yopu ment you plonker, but i aint got one, i even used your old name aswell LOL soz about that

edit: just put windows 7 on the usb drive, copied ios.sys, command.com and msdos.sys o the drive aswell,soon as the laptop booted it went instantly into win 7 setup

so why wouldnt it work with xp last night saying it cant be done in dos mode.

anyway all done now, thanks to everyone who replied guys, really appreciate it


edit: spoke to soon LOL the setup just keeps goin back to the beginning, BASTARDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

got windows 7 on it but soon as i take out the usb drive the laptop wont start up again, only works with the usb drive in the laptop, fuckin weird

anyone know why this is happening??, i deffo installed to the laptop hd like