Are there any boot disks out there (Floppy) that when finished will allow you to install Windows XP. I have a Toshiba laptop that will not read my USB CD-ROM but can boot from a USB Floppy. If I boot from like a 98 disk I can see the cd rom and access it but the windows install program will not run in that environment. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
![[H]ard|Forum](/styles/hardforum/xenforo/logo_dark.png){kind=logo}
Booting A laptop with no CD ROM
- Thread starter DooLocsta
- Start date
Optimummind
Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2004
- Messages
- 518
I guess you could try networking your laptop with your desktop PC and cloning the WinXP partition from the desktop's HDD to the laptop's HDD.
HekoAridese
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Messages
- 147
Toshiba is notorious for being lame with the BIOS boot options... a friend of mine had a virus pwn his computer and he couldn't reinstall windows because the CD-ROM drive couldn't be read... and the BIOS was password protected... I think his laptop lies somewhere collection dust to this day...
poundofflour
Limp Gawd
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2003
- Messages
- 164
you could get a bootdisk to get you into a command line with networking support, then stick the xp cdrom in another machine and share it.
Lunas
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Jul 22, 2001
- Messages
- 10,048
use the 98 boot disc to copy the i386 folder to the hard drive in a fat 32 partition it can be the size of the folder or the full drive if it is the size of the folder i think you can use that to install windows and have the remaining space be ntfs.
If you just dump it to the drive you can convert it to ntfs after windows is installed. In the i386 folder there is a exe called winnt.exe it should begin the install you will be asked if you want smartdrive.exe you dont need it you can continue with the install at this point... there is several faqs on how do do this.
here is one
If you just dump it to the drive you can convert it to ntfs after windows is installed. In the i386 folder there is a exe called winnt.exe it should begin the install you will be asked if you want smartdrive.exe you dont need it you can continue with the install at this point... there is several faqs on how do do this.
here is one
Thanks for all the replies guys. I figured it out, I booted with the 98 boot disk and just edited the batch files for the restore disks that came with the computer to not do any checks for system model. After skipping the verify options it installed perfectly with some ghost type of program that runs in DOS. Thanks again for all the replies.