Format and Reinstall Windows XP w/0 a CD Rom Drive

[jpw2ch]

How can I reinstall Windows XP without a CD Rom drive? I have a Dell Laptop Inspiron 5100 with an internal CD Rom drive that crapped out. It also does not have a floppy drive. I do not want to replace the cd drive right now but the machine needs to be formated and Windows reinstalled. I have an external USB hard drive that I can use. Is there a way to copy the Windows CD onto the USB hard drive and then use that to format the laptop?
I have the original XP CD that came with this laptop so what about installing the hard drive into another machine and formating and installing the entire cd onto the hard drive and then replacing it back into the Dell laptop to run the Windows setup? Is this possible? How do I do this?

[SuperSparks]

You can't install XP onto another machine and put the drive back into the laptop, the hardware will be different and it will almost certainly blue screen.

Actually I can't think of a way of doing this without either a CD or a floppy drive. If the BIOS would let you boot from an external floppy drive though, then I do have an idea.

[jpw2ch]

So you can't copy the Windows CD files onto the hard drive and then run the installation after it is installed back into the original laptop?

[SuperSparks]

Well that's along the lines of what I was thinking, but unless you can boot up from a floppy drive you'll never be able to get Setup to run.

[robertw]

Partition hard drive with a program like partition magic before you format
Make say a 5 or 10 gig partition fat32 copy i386 dir using USB drive
Then boot up with a floppy boot disk or a win98 boot disk
Install XP from there.
Load SMARTDRV.EXE first then it wont take all day
If you take out H/D and install on another laptop there’s a chance it wont blue screen depends how different hardware is.
Next time make an image on USB drive (Ghost, Acronis etc.)

[SuperSparks]

He doesn't have a floppy drive robertw, that's the problem.

[fink]

floopy USB drive?

eg- http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont...ist&sku=330764

[SuperSparks]

It'll only work if the BIOS will allow booting from a USB drive, some do and some don't. jpw2ch, if you can give us the exact model of the motherboard we may be able to find out if it will allow booting from a USB drive.

[robertw]

OK install win98 on another laptop
it wont blue screen for sure dont worry about all drivers.
Copy i386 dir using USB drive to another fat32 partition
from win98 shutdown to dos
and do it from there, or do XP upgrade from win98 depending on version of XP
I have been in same boat and done it this way

[jpw2ch]

So, RobertW, I am going to remove the hard drive, install it in another laptop, install windows 98, copy I386 directory and then install the hard drive on my laptop and run setup? Is that the procedure? Or am I copying the I386 directory after installing the hard drive in my laptop? Or am I running the setup on the other machine? Sorry!

[Nix]

I wouldn't even install Win98, I would just format the hard drive using the command

format c: /s

that would allow you to boot to a win98 c:\> prompt and then run the setup from the I386 directory.

So in answer to

So, RobertW, I am going to remove the hard drive, install it in another laptop, install windows 98, copy I386 directory and then install the hard drive on my laptop and run setup? Is that the procedure? Or am I copying the I386 directory after installing the hard drive in my laptop? Or am I running the setup on the other machine? Sorry!

Yes remove hard drive.
Yes install it in another laptop.
No, just format the drive / partition using the /s switch, no need to do a full install of Win98.
Yes copy the I386 directory from the WinXP CD.
Yes install the hard drive back into the lap top boot it which should take you to a Win98 c:\> prompt
Yes run setup on your laptop using the command c:\i386\setup

[robertw]

I386 will be on second partition, it could be on first but when you format it will be gone, unless you copy it back

Yes run setup on your laptop using the command c:\i386\setup

Will only work in 32 bit environment use d:\i386\winnt
Be sure to also put smartdrv on second partition do a search in any win98 computer one way to get it

Run it like this

D:\smartdrv.exe 9600
Then
d:\i386\winnt

If you dont do the smartdrv thing first part of installation will take 2 hours instead of less than 5 minutes

[jpw2ch]

Just want to thank everyone. Swapping the hard drive and copying the I386 files worked. Thanks again.

[robertw]

Where theirs a will theirs a way