How can u format a laptop if the cd-rom drive is toast?

Question

If have this old school laptop;
-acer aspire 1200
-intel celeron 1ghz
-256mb ram
-10gb hrdrive,
the problem is my internal cd rom drive's toasted. I need to format my laptop asap. i dont want to waste a lot of money repairing it. Can i format it using an external cd drive? im afriad it might not detect the cd drive while formatting it.

Answer 1

The formating is done from a start floppy.

format c:

So the floppy must have the needed DOS tools.
( format.exe and so on )


But do not start to format (avoid to format if You can)

unless You know to install OS from cd or
from other source than cd.

Just try to do what You need with a floppy.

Make a boot floppy

There is an option in older Windows to generate such a disk.
You will also find tools via yahoo or google if You do not have a windows that still has the option.

It should include e.g. Volkov commander as visual aid ( like dos based Norton commander = old file manger ) - You get that from i-net.

The boot floppy must include cd rom drivers that You need - do not start anything before You have that working as proof of concept that starts pc and external drive.

Else You will have to install OS from school net-work - You also need a special start disk/floppy for that.


Alternative You try to make a Linux floppy to do what You must. Also make sure that it works out before You format.


Alternative - take out the hdd put it into other pc and perform work inside that pc & put it back intp laptop when work is done.

Answer 2

Some computers won't let you BOOT from an External drive. You might have to buy a replacement drive for the internal CD drive.

You might find that you can clean the broken CD drive with alcohol. It might start working if you simply clean the laser lense.

Good luck and Happy Computing!

Answer 3

To format the computer, you need to be able to boot into a minimal operating system environment. I can think of three ways to do this:
*Replace the cd drive with a new one (or take the opportunity to upgrade to a dvd drive), and use an os install cd.
*Make a bootable usb drive and boot from it (see http://www.oreillynet.com/digitalmedia/blog/2004/10/utility_to_make_usb_flash_driv.html ). Once you have the usb drive ready, you need to tell your bios to boot from usb.
*Remove the hard drive from the laptop, and put it into a working computer; format it from there. You may need an ide adapter for this (inexpensive, <$10) since the port on laptop hard disks is smaller than on desktop drives.

Answer 4

If you have USB on this stoneage laptop you can connect your external cd-rom drive through that. Some computers do not require any software when you format...but you're living in the stoneage so you might.

Answer 5

yes, just hook up an external drive. Before you wipe out everything (I always tell customers this) ,make sure you copy all your driver files if you don't have the original OS disk that came with it. It will be time consuming trying to get the drivers.

Answer 6

Try to connect the laptop to another PC with a CDROM drive, using peer to peer networking. More tips at http://fixit.in

Answer 7

A simple solution might be to plug in an external cdrom.
Another solution would be to plug in an external floopy drive.
Goog luck!

Answer 8

yes you can.. go into CMOS setupo (you know, press F2 or F12 when your puter starts up) and change around the boot order to use USB before Hard Disk. Short and Sweet!!

Answer 9

If you are reformatting to get the drive to work you got things bass akwards! No working cd drive, no reinstall!

Answer 10

if u have a floppy drive or usb drive then us that. If your cd drive is 'toasted' then u will have to buy another one.