Problem Latitude C400

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Hi all,

ok, quickie as gotta go get some beers.

C400, you know the one, no CD Drive.....

Years ago i remember lots of times doing installs with a 98 Boot disk blah blah, to get the drivers, MSCDEX was it?? or something, too many moons gone by.

Anyway, not that that is gonna help me here. Just thoughts please, easiest and simplest to get O/S loaded. RIS maybe, or ide cable it to my test PC??????

Kat

 

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I would connect it to the test pc it would probably be faster too than to doing RIS.

 

if al other fails you can install with usb stick however i would try insall with the tet pc first

 

GODDDD,

im giving up for now, beers impeding my thoughts.....

Been following this:

http://www.hightech-edge.com/install-windows-xp-laptop-without-working-cd-floppy-drive/2568/

All fine till copying i386, i get cannot copy the path is to deep!!!!

Iv had enough for now...

Kat

 

Use IDE cable or HDD caddy and Test PC, no software on lappy needed.

You try an external CD drive but again tend to require an OS and drivers.

You could in theory set up various types of peer to peer network but that kinda requires software on lappy and is kinda like RIS.

I suspect some of the issues are the incorrect HAL could be installed if you run the installer from the Test PC, thats why guy uses MS-DOS to install from laptop.

Which Windows OS you trying to install ?

Path too long ? XP should install on a FAT32 partition, so I find it hard to beleive i386 cannot be put on one ?

Is the path too long from MS-DOS 7 on booting the lappy ?

Can't you just make the partition a primary partition, make HDD the first boot device and copy the bootable windows CD to the drive using robocopy or xcopy ?

 

Thanks guys,

just had a coffee.
Ok, used an old 700Mhz PC and i386 went ok.
All done following that link, but now after the DOS prompt where it says type c:i386winnt.exe i get bad command or file name....

Im giving up now, knackered... Though iv got further than i thought...

Kat

 

Is the primary HD assigned C: in this case ? (Do a CD C: and then a dir?)

If you CD you don't need drive prefix.
just :-i386winnt.exe

without CD its c:\i386winnt.exe

Is i386 contents in root of drive?

 

Thanks DM,
Yes its assigned C:
Yes in the root, checked Dir/w etc
just done c:\i386winnt.exe but the same.

Ummm, must have gone wrong somewhere then???

Kat

 

Still wont have it.

If i type winnt.exe i get to a blue XP setup screen C:\ needs to know the path where the files are located. Press enter, setup was unable to copy disk 1...........

K

 

If you hold down the esc key it just skips through all the files and then reboots to NTLDR missing. I can only think im doing something wrong when transfering the I386 files to the drive when attached to the test PC...??

 

Oh, could one of the mods move this post to software pleeaasseee...

 

Just see an original ext cd drive for the C400 go on Ebay, prob easier if i had one of them..

 

Don't you need the NT bootloader files for the drive to be bootable? Think you get these if you copy files from CD as I suggested ?

Also think drive needs to have a primary partition with these files in. Something like that, read around.

 

am reading around, me not lazy...

Thanks, i'll figure it out one way or another, i never give up....