o0_Enigma_0o

Hi Guys,

I have a laptop here that has a broken CD/DVD drive. I cant replace it because the guy who asked me to fix it says he dont want to spend money on it.

Anyway, Ive thought about removing the hard drive and hooking it up to my pc using a hard drive enclosure. this is ok i can access the hard drive and have removed the old os that didnt boot, so i have a blank hard drive now.

my plan was to make the hd bootable with dos and then copy the windows xp cd to the hard drive... i could then boot then run the setup.exe file :)

first of all.... would this work?
and secondly... how the hell do i make the hard drive bootable?

Thanks for your help

deeman7777

Good news, you don't need to do that. Just format the new hard drive in YOUR pc.

As for your dilemma of not having a CD rom on the laptop that does complicate things.

I would try to insert the WIN XP disc in YOUR working PC and with your new hard drive connected to your PC start the intall process - it should ask u where u want to install XP - HOPEFULLY you will have the option of seeing and selecting the new HD.

Try that and let us know.

TriggerFinger

I doubt if that step (post of deeman777) would work as I have tried that on my laptop recently... but try it and may be it will work with yours.

What I know works (and definitely tried it) is the steps in the page below:

http://www.syschat.com/install-windo...py-cd-463.html

o0_Enigma_0o

Hi guys,

Im pulling my hair out now... I tried a version of deeman777's post... i removed my laptop HD and then installed the other hard drive...
At the point when it has copied all the files and restarts i removed the HD and put it back in the original laptop.... started it and i just got a blue screen :(

thanks for your help so far guys... im gonna try TriggerFingers idea now ;)

o0_Enigma_0o

Right then...

I have read the idea TriggerFinger gave me... would there be away to do it using a USB Enclosure? because i have a USB HD enclosure.... i need away to fire dos and stuff onto it via the USB cable connection :|

TriggerFinger

The link I gave you has instructions that the hard drive was installed via IDE flat cable. I believe it can be done via USB enclosure. Follow the instructions again instead of the flat cable, use the USB enclosure. It would almost be the same.

o0_Enigma_0o

WOW!!!!
You rock Trigger Finger ;)
I have done what you said... well almost...
Instead of putting it into a Desktop with IDE i put it in my other laptop that had a SATA hard drive slot... Fdisk'd it and installed dos 7... put my original hard drive back in and loaded vista... plugged the other laptop in via USB enclosure... copied over the xp files ...

I put the HD in the laptop booted into dos 7 ran the winnt.exe file and installed windows.... fooking brill


thanks so much!!!

TriggerFinger

Good JOB!!! Glad to know you got it working again...