Laptop formatting/installing XP Pro

[dogfriend]

Doood.. laptops don't come with floppys anymore! At least in CA.

I used to own a Toshiba that had a floppy drive.....the floppy drive never worked right anyway....it used to crash Windows (3.1.1) whenever you tried to save to the A: drive...that computer was the biggest POS I have ever owned and a total waste of money....

I'm thinking that your Win XP CD may be defective. Have you been able to install on a different puter? If so, then maybe a problem with the CD drive itself.

I don't know whether you can install from an external drive, but that's what I would try next if possible.

 

[huskyfan23]

Actually, that might work. It loads proper drivers at the beginning and asks if you need certain drivers.

 

[section525]

But I can't get it into a mode where I could select an external drive. I'm working on getting a Win98 boot floppy onto a CD so I can run fdisk.

 

[Premier]

Wish I could help, you ******* guy.

 

[section525]

Still pluggin along. Got it fdisked and formatted with win98 boot disc on CD.

Now.. I guess I'll try to run the XP disc again? My external HD is USB. Can I get the computer to see it in DOS??

 

[dogfriend]

E:/ ?

Seems like it should show up, but you might need a driver cause its a USB device?

I deal with Windows as little as possible

 

[section525]

Holy crap. It did show up! But when I went to run the Setup.exe it said it can't be ran in DOS mode. WTF. I knew that too. Now what? Try booting from the external HD?

 

[dogfriend]

Do you have to change CMOS settings to boot from the External drive?

I know how to do it on a Mac, but I've never had to do it on a PC.

Most of the PCs I have to use are either running DOS 3.3 or Win 98.

 

[section525]

I found where you can change which HD it boots from. Theres only one option, but maybe that will change when I plug the External into it. Right now I have it on this laptop, moving my boot disk on it. 10 more minutes or sooo...

 

[section525]

Section pwn3d that laptop.