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Thread ID: 37121 2003-08-29 02:45:00 How to load an OS without CD Rom Drive desdog (3014) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
171421 2003-08-29 11:05:00 Desdog mention the cdrom is haddit and hdd is formatted , raring to go and would like to install an OS. There are plenty of ways of doing this incuding the long winded copying *.cab files to DMF formated floppies an copying them to the hdd. Time consuming I know but can be done........................... mark.p (383)
171422 2003-08-29 11:34:00 Well, another way would be to jury rig a standard CD drive using a standard IDE cable connected to an IDE socket, and one of those psu extension type leads. The box cover would need to be off, or maybe the connections could be brought out through the space left by removing the drive.

The Dell Optiplex has a similar problem of having a $200 CD slimline drive.
Terry Porritt (14)
171423 2003-08-29 11:50:00 Or use a dos terminal proggy to transfer files via parrallel(prefered) or serial
transfer cable between PCs-members.cox.net
mark.p (383)
171424 2003-08-29 12:14:00 The best option will be to take the drive out and install the OS on another PC - just copy the CD across to the HDD first so if you need the files later, you don't have to pull out the drive again.

I know that some of the Compaq Deskpros will not let you have another CD drive plugged in (power supply is too small - the slimline ones run off the the motherboard somehow) so you may be stuck without a CD drive for a long time.
wintertide (1306)
171425 2003-08-29 12:16:00 Along the lines of mark.p's idea, if you have access to something like Fastlynx II (which requires a special cable called a laplink cable and various other names) you could hook the 2 cptrs together and tranfer the installation files from the one with the operational CD to the one without. Fx II is DOS-based so you would need to watch out for long filenames but if you have any of those you could download the free trial version of Windows-based Fastlynx (? Fx III) and use that for the long file names. Fx III (or whatever) demo version will only copy 10 files or 10MB at a time (whichever is the greater) so it would not be practical for the whole job. There are other file transfer progs that would presumably do the job as well.
HTH.
Robin S_ (86)
171426 2003-08-29 12:20:00 ZK, don't do that. If its winME or win9x it may work but u get bombarded with all these errror screens once its back with the original PC with different hardwares. Fix the errors and should work.

If its NT4/2k/XP - the thing won't even boot. I know, as I have forced a ghost image onto a foreign PC before.


The best: maybe is to power the cd-drive on other pc and connect the drive thru the IDE cable on that PC. Then boot CD and install windows.,
nomad (3693)
171427 2003-08-30 02:50:00 An option would be to use another computer to copy the actual installation CD onto the hard drive, and reinstall it in the problem computer and run it from there. somebody (208)
171428 2003-08-30 03:11:00 And if you are keen enough to make your own laplink cable go here (www.lpt.com) Pheonix (280)
171429 2003-08-30 13:40:00 I for one have installed Win95 by copying the cab files from CD to the other PC (Without a CD-ROM or NIC.. and there were no COM or Parallel ports) via Floppy only.. took a while, but It worked!

I can vouch for FX as a great program!
Well worth the look into, even just 10 Megs at a time.. better than nothing surely!

A Null-Modem Cable from DSE will do the job for transferring it, and cost around $10-15 :-)
Chilling_Silently (228)
171430 2003-08-31 14:11:00 If you are considering transferring the files via floppy discs check out the installation file sizes first. I have just been looking at the files on a Win 95C CD and one is 1.9+MB and another is 11+! Robin S_ (86)
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