OS Install Strategies

[aarmenaa]

I recently recieved an old tablet PC with nothing but the power cord. There's something wrong with the Windows XP install on the hard disk, and it won't boot. The system doesn't have a CD-ROM or a floppy. Apparently both were permanently misplaced by the previous owner. The BIOS has boot order options to boot a hard disk, CD-ROM, floppy, and network boot. Does a CD-ROM in a USB enclosure count as a CD-ROM? I only ask because booting off USB thumb drives isn't supported. Is there any other way of getting an OS on this computer (how does network boot work)?

Stupid laptop. It's a Toshiba Portege 3500.

EDIT:
I don't care about the original install, and the OS can be anything that will boot this thing (Windows, Linux, even DOS). I just need to confirm that it works.

 

[z-lite]

USB is an interface to the computer system just like IDE. The problem is getting the BIOS to boot from other interfaces other than IDE. You can buy a USB CD-ROM drive and try it on the tablet and if it doesnt work, return it.

 

[Iclisx]

Network boot requires that you have a server set up on the network so that an OS can be pulled down. For more info you can start here.

Since the hard disks in most notebooks are easily upgradable, the easiest method might be to simply pull the disk, grab and adapter from the local shop (or online), and then put the OS install files on the disk by connecting it to another computer.

Note that the OS installed on tablets is a different from normal Windows XP. If you don't have the install disks you'll probably have to get replacement disks.

 

[aarmenaa]

Thanks for the input. I asked about USB because one system I've worked on had an external CD-ROM (just a regular DVD-RW in an enclosure) and when you plug in an external optical the BIOS just detects a regular 'ol CD-ROM, and it's bootable even when the BIOS doesn't actually support USB booting. I assume this is done though some sort of emulation layer, and was wondering if this was the standard response to USB optical devices.

Network booting looks kinda painful, truth be told. Not that I really expected something like that to be easy, of course. I suppose my best bet is buying that adapter.