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| Thread ID: 73800 | 2006-11-01 07:11:00 | Re-install Windows from USB Drive | Ferg (2559) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 495694 | 2006-11-01 10:32:00 | I have an idea that should work. 1. Download a USB bootable Linux distribution and install it on a large (1GB +) USB drive. 2. Boot off the USB drive. Ensure that none of the hard drive partitions are mounted - we don't want to touch the hard disk directly! 3. Install QEmu (completely free) or VMWare Server (free licence key required). 4. Rip a perfect CD image of the XP install disk ('clone' copy, not a file based copy) and put it on the USB drive. This could also be done using a file server but would be slow. 5. Start QEmu or VMWare Server Console as root and start it running using the physical hard drive as its virtual hard drive and the CD image as its emulated CD drive. The hard drive should use "raw" mode in QEmu or the "physical partition" setting in VMWare. 6. Install Windows as normal in the virtual machine. 7. Reboot. Hopefully Windows should boot and work just fine. |
TGoddard (7263) | ||
| 495695 | 2006-11-01 10:38:00 | If not USB. Google a "network bootdisk". That is you can boot from diskette and then use the other computer via the network like a CD Drive to install windows. For IBM lappies, there should be a hotkey that comes up on screen like press F12 or such or SHIFT F12 something like that. If not, then the hidden partition with that install files has been deleted or the link to boot up as been altered. If it is there, press it and it would engage install of windows for you back to factory default but it will wipe your HDD clean. Backup files before hand. Or buy a 2.5" cable converter take lappie HDD out of laptop and stick in PC and format it and make a folder and biff over the CD files. Before format it with "format d: /s" so you copy boot files onto it and it will boot by itself. |
Nomad (952) | ||
| 495696 | 2006-11-02 03:17:00 | Right, thanks for the detailed replies, that will be my mission tonight. My last resort which I practised last night was I made the USB a win98 boot disk with Win98 setup files and was able to commence the install of Win98. From there I will be able to install WinXP from an i386 folder. It's not pretty, but should work. The above answers are far more classy :cool: and will let you know Thanks people. |
Ferg (2559) | ||
| 495697 | 2006-11-02 20:01:00 | Oh well..... the hard drive died last night, so that's that. Thanks for all the help, the one good thing that came out of this was getting Knoppix to boot from a flash drive, it works really well and quickly. Link at www.howudune.com if anyone is interested. Ferg |
Ferg (2559) | ||
| 495698 | 2006-11-03 01:53:00 | I'd take the HDD out. Copy the i386 dir onto it. Run it that way. |
pctek (84) | ||
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