Installing OS on notebook with busted CD drive...

Xandos · 29 Mar 2008 at 21:13

Hi, I've got an Acer Aspire 1670 with a busted CD drive and no floppy. I'm hoping to reinstall windows on it, although obviously this is proving to be problematic. There is a hidden partition called pqservice or something, but I don't know how to access it, and the ALT-F10 repair key does nothing, even though enabled in BIOS. There is a boot from network option in the BIOS, which is an interesting option, however I know nothing about making that work. From what I've read on the internet you still need a boot disk or something? Can anyone offer me any advice on how I might be able to get this done? It has XP on it already, I was just hoping for a clean slate.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks for reading.

Ry@n · 30 Mar 2008 at 10:46

Get a new CD drive ? Im sure they are cheap enough.

xb8browney · 30 Mar 2008 at 11:06

Put the xp disc in another computer and share the drive?

syke · 30 Mar 2008 at 11:18

External CD ROM?

clv101 · 30 Mar 2008 at 11:21

A USB optical drive is the answer. If you have an external HDD caddy you could take that appart and connect an optical drive to the ribbon cable in the caddy.

syke · 30 Mar 2008 at 11:30

I bought an External Optical Drive for the Eee, and found myself using it on many machines, its so much easier, for example older machines that need a drive, that works.

Just make sure you have USB set to a boot device (should be in the line anyway!).

KWJay · 30 Mar 2008 at 12:09

i wouldn't bother with an external drive. Internal ones are cheaper and unless you need the external one for use on other pc's just replace the one in the laptop.

clv101 · 30 Mar 2008 at 12:26

KWJay said:
i wouldn't bother with an external drive. Internal ones are cheaper and unless you need the external one for use on other pc's just replace the one in the laptop.

Internal drives for laptops might not be cheaper. A decent USB2 external DVD-RW can be had for £33 inc.

Xandos · 30 Mar 2008 at 13:20

I tried an external USB dvd drive, but it's not picked up in the BIOS and the boot order doesn't have USB device in the list, so I think the laptop is old enough to not be able to read USB stuff outside of windows.

I don't really want to buy a new laptop CD drive, as I never use CDs, it'd just be a waste.

I'm now thinking about taking the HDD out, putting it in my desktop somehow and installing windows there and replacing back...

I suppose it's time to walk into one of the reasons that wouldn't work.

Thanks for the replies.

"Put the xp disc in another computer and share the drive?"
Is that the network boot option? I thought that needed PXE or something?

Xandos · 30 Mar 2008 at 13:51

With an adapter I have the laptop drive in my desktop PC, I thought of installing WinXP and then swapping the drives back... However, will this be hardware specific for my desktop? And once it's back in my laptop just not work?

I've had 2k installs that when put in another machine don't work, is XP any different in that regard?

Thanks for the help.

Tombo · 30 Mar 2008 at 14:16

It's possible it could work if you just installed xp and put it straight in.

clv101 · 30 Mar 2008 at 14:20

Could you copy the contents of the XP CD on the laptop's HDD (over the network) then run the XP setup program? Maybe make a 2nd partition on the HDD for the XP copy so you can format/install on to C:?

KWJay · 30 Mar 2008 at 14:52

clv101 said:
Internal drives for laptops might not be cheaper. A decent USB2 external DVD-RW can be had for £33 inc.

And an internal one for £27.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-079-LG&groupid=701&catid=10&subcat=952

Plus saves space and weight when carrying the laptop about. Internal all the way unless u want to use it on other pc's. simple as.

And you say u never use CD's, what about DVD's. I find it hard to believe that you never ever use any kind of optical media with your laptop. what about backup etc?

Xandos · 30 Mar 2008 at 14:58

clv101 said:
Could you copy the contents of the XP CD on the laptop's HDD (over the network) then run the XP setup program? Maybe make a 2nd partition on the HDD for the XP copy so you can format/install on to C:?

I can do that (I do have a functioning windows atm). In fact, the laptop has two partitions as it is, only in the BIOS you can't choose the partition to boot from, only the drive... So it always boots from C:\.... Would there be a way of using the second partition to install to the first? I'm a bit dumb at stuff like that.

Thanks again.

clv101 · 30 Mar 2008 at 15:29

I think so - just copy the whole disc (from a network share on different machine) to the 2nd partition and run the setup program.

Xandos · 30 Mar 2008 at 15:42

Umm, do you mean from a DOS prompt type thing?I got confused when DOS didnt exists any more. Should I work out how to use the recovery console? In fact, I don't think I can get to the console without it first booting off a Windows CD or something (which it can't do) And you can definately install from one partition to the other?

Sorry for asking dumb questions.

clv101 · 30 Mar 2008 at 15:53

I think you can just run the setup.exe from within windows... I might be wrong though.

Xandos · 30 Mar 2008 at 20:50

I just put the contents on the CD to the non system partition, and ran setup.exe...

I get the choice between an upgrade and a full new installation - I really like the look of this, but I can't risk doing that, rebooting and then being asked for a CD once it's destroyed the existing OS. Can anyone please tell me what would happen? Thanks.