I'm having problems with my laptop. I reformatted my laptop and now I can't get my dvd drive to work and consequentially I can't install an OS back onto my laptop. I've come up with a plan on how to fix this but I thought I should probably run it by some other people first (even though I am an IT major at PCT). My plan is to buy an enclosure for my laptop HDD, install the OS using my desktop's dvd drive, and then put the HDD back into my laptop. Any suggestions or comments would be appreciated. Thanks!
2007-02-18 16:16:52 · 5 answers · asked by hauntingzero 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Laptops & Notebooks
That will not work.
When you install an operating system onto a particular drive, you automatically write boot information to the primary master drive on the computer that it is installed on telling the computer where the active partition is.
If you install the os on the laptop drive through an external controller, the boot record will be written to the desktop's hard drive and when the laptop attempts to search for the boot record it will not find the proper information.
You could try getting an external CD rom drive for your laptop and use that. Though I am not sure if the XP install has a usb-cdrom driver built into the install.
2007-02-18 16:29:24 · answer #1 · answered by Bjorn 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If I understand this right, won't the OS during install want to look at all of the hardware? The laptop's hard drive will be in an enclosure, USB'd to the desktop? So it will look at your desktop's hardware? Then you'll be plugging it back into the laptop's regular IDE? She might get angry. I swapped out my hard drive, and put in into another motherboard environment once and lost my USBs permanently. Heard there was a way, but gave up. PC repair shop gave up too.
Is it possible to use the enclosure on an optical drive from your desktop, and USB that to your Laptop, and have it boot off the optical drive? Just a guess. http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-1035_11-5490289.html
2007-02-18 16:40:05 · answer #2 · answered by Robert H 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It won't be a good solution for the a few reasons:
1. The hardware won't match up, so you'll have to re-validate the installation and you'll wind up with a bunch of garbage in the registry from the old machine's hardware.
2. It's difficult to get the entire install of an OS to copy over from one computer to another. You'll need to use a drive imaging software to ensure that it works.
As an alternative, I suggest going about it this way:
Copy the i386 folder to the hard drive and run the WINNT32.EXE file in there to start setup. Do not choose Upgrade. C:\WINNT as your installation path and simply delete the Windows folder when done. Choose "Install to another location" and specify C:\WINNT.
When done, go to the Program Files folder and remove program
folders that are now obsolete. Go to Control Panel > System > Advanced > Startup and Recovery and click Edit. Remove the lines with C:\Windows in them and reduce the "timeout" to zero. Now delete the Windows folder.
Leave the i386 folder on the drive. You may need it later.
2007-02-18 16:32:04 · answer #3 · answered by torklugnutz 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I not sure. Your BIOS still intact? Normally it give a "Get Go" and then your CD/DVD work to load OS. IF, your CD not work, I not sure, maybe I am wrong, but, it seem like a BIOS problem. Boot and press F1 or what you need to enter BIOS and see if anything not seem correct, like Boot sequence or CD Drive disabled.
Computers should "POST" drives or not and the motherboard should go to BIOS, drives or not.
2007-02-18 16:26:29 · answer #4 · answered by Snaglefritz 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
sounds good, just make sure you get everythng you need in your harddrive.
2007-02-18 16:21:43 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋