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Thread ID: 117102	2011-04-02 07:08:00	Laptop OS reinstall - possible or not?	Paul.Cov (425)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1191419	2011-04-02 07:08:00	Hi All, I have an old laptop with a mix of working and non-working components. It has Win XP installed, but the optical drive is kaput - so no option of using a WinXP CD and doing a straight-forward clean install. My only way to get data on or off the drive is via USB ports and floppy disc. Naturally, if the existing copy of XP becomes corrupted I won't have USB access any longer either. My hope is that I can copy the WinXP CD onto a USB stick, and do an install from that... or copy the XP cd files to another partition, and trigger the Setup routine from there... but can I initiate a Windows installation with the existing Windows in use? I need Windows running in order to have USB access. Alternatively, can I boot via the floppy, and then access the partition holding the Setup files and run Setup essentially from DOS? My concern is that if the process fails I'll have turned a semi-functional laptop into a useless laptop that will only ever boot off a floppy into DOS.	Paul.Cov (425)
1191420	2011-04-02 07:13:00	copy the XP cd files to another partition, and trigger the Setup routine from there... but can I initiate a Windows installation with the existing Windows in use? I need Windows running in order to have USB access. I think you can, chose the clean install option and go from there. I think Windows XP will let you make a start up floppy disk, IIRC you format a floppy and check the copy system files option.	Cato (6936)
1191421	2011-04-02 07:26:00	If the laptop has the option to boot from a USB drive in the BIOS, install it from USB. To check, plug in a USB drive, reboot into the BIOS,look for boot order, and see if USB is available. If it is, download WinsetupfromUSB (www.mediafire.com) - install it on a PC that has a working optical drive, and use the program to make a bootable USB install drive.This ones easy to use and works good with XP. Edited: just watch out on that site, you get a few popups, but the download is on the right after a few moments.Also available here (www.datafilehost.com) no popups	wainuitech (129)
1191422	2011-04-02 07:28:00	You have already one or more USB ports that currently work. Transfer the partition with the setup files to an external hard drive. Boot off a USB Stick if the Bios allows same but if you were to tell people what make and model laptop this is possibly you may get more help.	Snorkbox (15764)
1191423	2011-04-02 07:29:00	Snap. More or less. :)	Snorkbox (15764)
1191424	2011-04-02 07:33:00	Based on the fact that his Laptop has a floppy drive, it would be safe to assume that he would not have an option to boot from USB. And to add to that, if he had USB 1.0 then it would take quite a while to install WinXP.	Cato (6936)
1191425	2011-04-02 09:24:00	Based on the fact that his Laptop has a floppy drive, it would be safe to assume that he would not have an option to boot from USB. And to add to that, if he had USB 1.0 then it would take quite a while to install WinXP. It's not safe to assume anything.	Snorkbox (15764)
1191426	2011-04-02 09:33:00	You can install XP from USB but it's a bit tricky. (And I've never bothered to try) If the laptop didn't support booting from USB you could make a floppy bootdisk that would let you, say using PloP boot manager.	Agent_24 (57)
1191427	2011-04-02 09:46:00	That link I posted above for the winsetupfromusb does all the work for you, you simply set the BIOS to boot from USB and it installs XP as if it were running from a CD drive. Its the only one I have found that actually works with out a lot of mucking about - I had to do it about a month ago on an old compaq laptop that had a stuffed optical drive. Took around the same time as a CD install.	wainuitech (129)
1191428	2011-04-02 19:20:00	Why not replace the optical drive?	pctek (84)
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