What’s the best way to install Windows XP in a Laptop that doesn’t hav 1

[solracesoj]

I’ve a TOSHIBA Laptop that doesn’t have a CD reader in it (it’s a POTEGEE, or something like that). In order to read CD’s I’ve to plug in by USB an external CD reader.

When installing Windows XP on desktop PC’s I usually restart with the Windows XP CD and install it by doing the Format of the PC so I get a clean and fresh installation of Windows XP.

In this case I’m not able to do it, because the Laptop doesn’t recognize the CD reader before the windows start.

I even tried to copy all the Windows XP CD to the hard disk, and through a startup floppy disk FDD, execute the setup on the directory where I copied the CD content. But that didn’t work because after reading the startup floppy disk FDD I can’t access the drive C:. Do you know why?

Is there a way to make the USB CD reader available when starting through the startup floppy disk FDD?

Or is there another suggestion you do for it?

Thanks a lot for your help!

J.C.

 

[edfair]

In those cases where both floppy and CD are unusable I put the drive on another machine to allow a DOS install, put a DOS partition at the beginning containing the boot and OS install stuff then reinstall the hard drive. I install the OS in the logical drive I create in the extended partition.


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[solracesoj]

So you advise me to create a partition on my C: in order to install the OS from there?

How can I do that?

 

[edfair]

It requires you to have the capability of using the hard drive in your desktop machine. This takes an adapter, costs about $10, and a bootable floppy with something like 98SE DOS with the newer fdisk for fat32.
You mount the hard drive as primary master with auto in the CMOS, boot to floppy, fdisk and delete all previous, create a primaty of say 1gb, and reboot. Next time you fdisk and create an extended partition and allow it to create a logical drive. Next time you format c: /s and format d:.
Next time you boot with cd support and copy the install stuff to the c:
Replace the hard drive in the laptop, boot and move to the install directory and install. Put the OS on the D:.


Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.