Need help with os installation

dr4g0nf1y · 18 Oct 2009 at 13:01

I have to reinstall xp on to my friends laptop but I'm finding it imposible to do.

She gave it to her sister and her boyfriend has been downloading stuff of limewire and has bugged the whole os. Everytime on startup the disc scan starts because of problems and sometimes blue screens a little way into the os running, so there's no option but to reinstall.

But here's the problem.

It's an acer travel mate 330 which doesn't have a built in cd/dvd drive. It came with a firewire drive but the port is bugged and doesn't work. I've connected a usb drive which does plug and play but I can't reinstall of the discs with winnt32.exe because of the service pack updates so I can only do this through bios.

here's the second problem.

I've put the hard drive to the back of the list and there's like removable drives and a lan option but obviosly I can't seem to load the disc from any of those.

any ideas would be a great help, cheers

dr4g0nf1y · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:11

I hate having to double post but... does anyone have an idea?

asoxedri · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:15

external cd/dvd rom? all i can think of.

Humate · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:16

im a n00b... not sure why the service packs prevent you doing anything?

In a n00b attempt to help though after your double post frenzy... did u copy all the installation files off the external hard drive onto the laptops disk before running winnt32.exe? i had to reinstall the os on my thinkpad x41, i spent ages trying but couldnt get it to work... just turned out u have to copy the files across to the laptop disk first or installation fails as it cant handle doing it off the external

ETNiES · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:38

Only thing I can think of doing if it just won't let you boot from CD is to install windows on an external hard drive and boot from that then format the internal drive when you get into windows,

Strange problem you have

dr4g0nf1y · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:40

the firewire drive has power but doesn't show in "my computer". My usb drive on the other hand does but doesn't load the disc on startup, it just skips the 3 alternatives and load of the hard drive.

the winnt32.exe is in one of the folders on the hard drive already, apparently you have to use this program with the installation disc in a drive.

it checks and finds that it has sp2 installed and says I have to run of bios.

also the drive is formatted to fat32 but I doubt that matters.

I hate acer!

Humate · 19 Oct 2009 at 14:57

maybe someone else can help... but if ALL installation files have been copied form the external hard drive to the laptop hard drive then u run winnt32.exe off the laptop hard drive installation should work fine.

dr4g0nf1y · 19 Oct 2009 at 16:02

There are no external hard drives, just the two internal.

I don't know if I should try updating to sp3 and see if that sorts out the firewire port. When I last tried it blue screened in the process of downloading, but the last few times it had been fine.