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71371
July 15th, 2009 18:00
How do I reinstall windows in a Latitude C400 without CDROM or Floppy?
I have a Latitude C400 with a corrupted OS (Win XP). I have no CDROM or Floppy and can't really afford to get one.
I have Win 98, Me and XP discs and licenses but how can I get the OS on to the hard disc? The BIOS doesn't seem to allow boots from USB devices (flash or CD). I have an ethernet router, another laptop with a DVD drive but no floppy drive and a desktop running XP too (again, no floppy drive).
Thank you.
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ejn63
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July 15th, 2009 18:00
The C-series doesn't boot from USB.
You can put the drive in a 2.5" external case or in the other system, format it bootable using a DOS or WIn9x CD (format c: /s), copy the installer files to a scratch directory (c:\install or somthing like that) and boot from it long enough to start setup.
dimercaprol
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July 20th, 2009 06:00
Thank you for your advice.
I got hold of another laptop that has a floppy drive and CD drive and managed to make it work.
I had to split the hard disk into C: and D: drives using FDISK, format them both bootable, and then install windows on D before I could copy the entire Windows disk into a scratch directory on the C drive.
Then put the disk back into my problem laptop. At this stage I had to choose between the Windows installation on D (which of course resulted in a BSoD) or the boot up files on C which allowed me to install windows on C on the new computer. I then deleted everything on D successfully and it works fine.
Cheers!