Uncreative Labs

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

my son was given a nice laptop and then waited a year for the charger.
first the owner had all sorts of things loaded. most needed to be removed.
and still it was flakey.
finmally it was formatted and took off the xp pro and installed xp home that was the legal version. ( label on case)

it didn't go too badly then the cd started making bad noises and died.
later that night after many blue screens, the 60gb drive died.
several days later with a new hd but no cd and no floppy, we are trying to figure out how to install.
I have a 1g usb flash drive but cannot seem to make it bootable.
the options are in my pc. but none work. we will try a usb cd
or wait for a new cd drive.
Olden days were much simpler.

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

I have only installed XP the right way about 3 times the rest I did a ghost clone of an HD in the middle of copying files and setting up.

In your case get a laptop to desktop IDE converter for $5 on ebay

Install your laptop hard drive into a desktop system, disconnect any extra hard drives.

Start installing XP by using a windows 98 boot disk and running the setup program straight from the installation directory on the CD. (be sure only the CD-drive and the laptop hd are in the system)

It will copy files in the mean time, once it completes and wants to reboot the 1st time (should be during the old dos like blue, white and black text portion)
shut off the machine and transplant the HD to another computer.

The next portion of the DOS like setup will occur on the laptop and everything should install nicely

If not you can also copy the entire installation directory off the XP cd to the laptop hard drive then reinstall the drive into the laptop and install. You will need to format the drive as fat32 and bootup using a 98 boot disk. You can always convert to NTFS later.

Good Luck
Ryan

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

and BTW the laptop has a xp home sticker so it will be legal as he needs updates

I realize that this cd will boot when the system is set to boot from cd.
the neighboir has a usb cd ( spomewhere)
my son set up all partitions as ntfs
I don't know if I can "unformat c:
but the "trick" with another pc and stopping at the first reboot,. and also copying the contents of i386 to another partition of the new drive ( since we have no cd now) maybe all required files will be on the c drive at the time of the first reboot.
but when he gats back I will suggest it.
sounds like a plan- one that will work
we do have a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter and also the GUTS
of a passport drive ( usb to laptop drive )

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

since the optical drives went gritchy and died
we had no drive no floppy.
finally a friend pulled out the cd drive from an old IBM and started taking parts off. it fitted and worked in the gateway.
next the hard drive seems to have run into the 137gb limit.
this is a larger drive. we will try flashing the bios and see.
gateway wants $59.95 to answer a question.
we will never buy one of their products. ever.
like" how big a hd will this thing take"
wd does not mention disk manager ( I know I don't like it either) but there must be a software solution if a flash does not make the big drive work.

Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 261 Location: WisConSin

The difference between a drive to 137gb and one larger than that size is a HARDWARE difference, you will never get a 137+gb drive working at full capacity on a system with a non-48bit HD controller period.

Joined: 03 Feb 2006 Posts: 488 Location: pennsylvanai

I said that the FIRST thing is to flash the bios
then worry about making all the drivers work,
but he has all the drivers working
and does not see the first option is a re-flash
if he can ( i think) get past 137gb the larger die will be fully functional.
he never asked
what does an old fart know.?