Install windows without a cdrom?

Q

quink

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2002
Messages
305
Hey
Just got a used sony vaio, pcg-fx340. The only things wrong with it are, a)cd/dvdrom is broken and b)windows xp is full of spyware/viruses beyond any repair
I tried using an external cdrw drive to use to boot my windows xp cd, but no luck. Its flashed to the latest bios and that hasn't helped it pickup an external drive to boot.
So what options do I have to reinstall and format? It can do a network boot, but can i make windows install boot off a network?
Thanks for the help
 
Ahh the joys of remote Windows installations. Most external drives, especially if it's USB, I've come across are not recognized until in Windows, so that explains your problem.

To set up a remote installation server, you'll need either Windows 2000 Server or Windows Server 2003, and even after that, you'll need to do some customization as it's most likely Windows setup won't recognize your network card right away.

It may be possible as well to make a network bootable floppy disk, and connect to a share with XP setup.

It's probably easier and cheaper to just buy a replacement CD drive for your laptop off ebay, or take the HD out and connect it to a desktop machine and format / copy windows setup files to the Hd.
 
you can do network installs of xp, just forgot how LOL i did it a couple times in college
 
Take the HDD out of the laptop, and put it in a desktop machine which has a working CDROM (may need a 2.5" to 3.5" adapter). Boot with an original Win 98 floppy (should have the CDROM driver). fdisk and format the 2.5" HDD, and sys c: to make it bootable. copy the whole contents of the XP CD to a folder on the 2.5" HDD (like c:\cdrom) and ensure the 2.5" hdd will boot (by re-booting the desktop). Put 2.5" hdd back in the laptop, boot, go to c:\cdrom and run setup (it's DOS based). Should be able to install XP from that point. Done this several times with no problems....

Good luck

- Tim
 
Hook up a USB CD-ROM to the laptop.

Boot into Windows.

Insert XP CD into CD-ROM.

When prompted, select "Install Windows XP"

yes, you can install Windows from within Windows.

The computer will reboot and launch into setup mode and will continue to read from the USB CD-ROM. I had this same problem a few weeks ago with a customers laptop having a bad cd-rom.
 
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