No CD-drive or USB-boot XP Installation

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

BillytheImpaler

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I'm working on a friend's laptop, the worst Vaio ever to roll off of Sony's line. As it is the XP installation is trashed. Easy, I thought, I'll just reinstall from the recovery disk. Not so fast, the internal optical drive doesn't work. I have a USB external optical drive, but the laptop doesn't support booting from USB. It does support network booting, though I've never done much in this regard with Windows so I'm not sure where to begin. Sony has never released a BIOS update for this machine, so there's no hope of a simple BIOS update fixing this.

Does anybody have any clever ideas?
 
Do you have an adapter to take the HDD out and put it into another machine where by you can either copy the installation files?
 
Oh, I should note that removing the disk and installing on a machine with a working ODD has not succeeded. I thought about swapping a working ODD into the crappy machine, but none of my laptops have drives with the same electrical interface.

Net-booting seems like my only option. Any help?
 
Burnsy2023 said:
Do you have an adapter to take the HDD out and put it into another machine where by you can either copy the installation files?
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With Linux I might partition the HDD and format a CD-sized partition as ISO 9660 and use that as an installation media. Would Windows play ball? How might I get this to work without a proper bootloader? Might I get LILO to do the legwork? Does it even need a bootloader? How would it know which partition to boot from?
 
BillytheImpaler said:
With Linux I might partition the HDD and format a CD-sized partition as ISO 9660 and use that as an installation media. Would Windows play ball? How might I get this to work without a proper bootloader? Might I get LILO to do the legwork? Does it even need a bootloader? How would it know which partition to boot from?
Click to expand...

Yes it would need a boot loader. If you set the BIOS to boot from HDD it will look at the MBR on the disc which lists all bootable partitions.

I'm not sure if you could make a partition and boot off it like it was a CD but it sounds worth a try just to see if it works. You could copy MS-DOS system files onto the HDD with the windows installation files and execute the WINNT.exe. (iirc) file to install.

Network install is also an option but requires a bit of setting up with RIS.
 
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How i've done this in the past was to remove the HDD and put it into my USB 2.5" caddy or you can use a converter to connect it to standard IDE (both are cheap). Format the drive in FAT32 then copy the contents of the XP cd you wish to install from onto a small partition on the drive (this can be deleted later). You can create a large partition from the rest of the space or get windows to do it in installation.

Now you just need a DOS floppy boot disc (make one from windows on another machine, and make sure you have himem.sys (I think!) and in the autoexec too. replace the HDD in the laptop and boot from floppy, then when it's booted navigate to your small partition, then to i386 folder, then type 'winnt' to begin the installer. If you don't have floppy you'll need to copy the DOS files to the disk and have it boot from them. I'm not sure how involved this is, as my **** laptop has a FDD.

Sorry if you know a lot of this already, but it may help some other people in the same position.

EDIT: Burnsy touched upon this, though i'm pretty sure its the 'winnt.exe' that'll need running. Hope that helps.
 
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So I could, in theory, format the first partition as FAT32, throw all the bootlable MS-DOS jazz along with the Windows installation files, and it'll boot with no MBR present?

EDIT: Thanks, guys. I'll try that when I get home from work today. :)
 
I'm not so sure it will boot without a boot sector as Burnsy mentioned. Not sure if I missed something here but what are you planning to use to copy the windows installation files across to the laptop HDD?
 
Is the Vaio recovery disk actully a boot able copy of XP or an image file? The Vaio's i have woked with had a Ghost style revovery disk rather than a Windows CD
 
Nanobot said:
I'm not so sure it will boot without a boot sector as Burnsy mentioned. Not sure if I missed something here but what are you planning to use to copy the windows installation files across to the laptop HDD?
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I'll put it in a different laptop I have handy that has the same HDD interface. I'll boot from a Linux live CD using the external ODD and copy the requisite extracted files over. This way I can use the one-and-only 2.5" PATA machine that'll read the CD to format and write to the disk. If it doesn't work I'll have to fall back on either a network installation, which would be a huge PITA I'm sure, or opt to replace the broken ODD at the owner's expense.

Is the Vaio recovery disk actually a boot able copy of XP or an image file? The Vaios I have worked with had a Ghost style recovery disk rather than a Windows CD
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I've got a few XP OEM installation CDs handy. Presumably I can use that as the source for the installation files and continue to use the laptop's original license code to activate it. Furthermore I presume that the Vaio disk is full of the same sort of Sony crap that's part of the current problem. :p

I'll see how it goes. Thanks!
 
If you format the drive in another machine using a boot disc, you should have an mbr, so it shouldnt be a problem. As I said, floppy disc always worked for me too. I've managed to get a networked one to work too, but it was a major hassle.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
I'll put it in a different laptop I have handy that has the same HDD interface. I'll boot from a Linux live CD using the external ODD and copy the requisite extracted files over. This way I can use the one-and-only 2.5" PATA machine that'll read the CD to format and write to the disk. If it doesn't work I'll have to fall back on either a network installation, which would be a huge PITA I'm sure, or opt to replace the broken ODD at the owner's expense.

I've got a few XP OEM installation CDs handy. Presumably I can use that as the source for the installation files and continue to use the laptop's original license code to activate it. Furthermore I presume that the Vaio disk is full of the same sort of Sony crap that's part of the current problem. :p

I'll see how it goes. Thanks!
Click to expand...

Ok thanks. I only read the bit before about the ODD being different but didnt see that you had another laptop.
Apart from copying the installation files you mentioned earlier, you could install XP all the way with the HDD in your spare laptop and once done, you could run Sysprep which would reset the build to 'factory default' like you would see when you start up a brand new OEM comuter - ready for starting up in your friend's laptop. It would go through the redetect of hardware etc...
 
Nanobot said:
you could run Sysprep which would reset the build to 'factory default' like you would see when you start up a brand new OEM comuter - ready for starting up in your friend's laptop. It would go through the redetect of hardware etc...
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That would be great as it would make the process quite simple. Does sysprep really work that way? I thought it just brought back all the first-run jazz, but I am so far from an expert it's scary. :p
 
BillytheImpaler said:
That would be great as it would make the process quite simple. Does sysprep really work that way? I thought it just brought back all the first-run jazz, but I am so far from an expert it's scary. :p
Click to expand...

Been a while since I last used it, but google Sysprep and get the right switches to use. You would install Windows and any apps you want, and then run Sysprep. It should then shut down the pc ready for imaging/cloning - or in your case, take the disk out and put it back in your friends laptop and boot it up.
Edit: Link to some info.
 
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I'm getting a BSOD before it boots to anything. In safe mode it stalls at Mup.sys. The BSOD is 0x0000007B (0xF7981528, 0xC0000034, 0x00000000, 0x00000000). The googles tell me it might have something to do with the boot sector or hardware. Either way, it's the same error I got even before I finished the install and ran sysprep (which is pretty cool, BTW).

I wish this laptop had BIOS options that, you know, actually gave me options. I'd like to disable non-essential hardware to test if any of that is an issue. Alas, I cannot.

Any suggestions? Right now it's looking like I'll have to replace the broken ODD at the very least and maybe even just chuck the machine. It's odd since the previous XP installation worked, albeit poorly.

EDIT: I removed the broken optical drive (assuming that the hardware in it is in fact broken and it's not the mobo or something else) but the result is the same. I also removed all the cards that can be removed, the modem and the WLAN cards.

I might have to go back to try an install using the chipset in the machine using a network boot or something equally horrible.
 
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For some reason this XP disk doesn't give me the option of the recovery console. Weird. I think I'll have to get one and write back.

Thanks again for your continued assistance. :)

EDIT: Now that I think of it, it boots just fine in my laptop. It's only in his that it doesn't boot. Fixmbr and fixboot (and chkdisk just for fun) wouldn't help since whatever the POS Sony is looking for would probably still not be there. Hmm, I'll try it and see how it goes.

It's quite a shame that the new ODD would cost $150.
 
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one thing i've done before in this situation..

install xp in virtualbox, take an image of it, then write the image back to the hard drive (remove the hd from the laptop first to do this)

not 100% guaranteed to work, but i've never had an issue with it..

messy i know.
 
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