Reformatting A Laptop Without A System Disk (cd Drive Is Broken)?
Jan 21, 2008
I have a laptop that I just got my hands on, it's a Dell Inspiron 8200, has windows XP Pro (service pack 2) on it. I need to reformat it, however, the cd drive doesnt really work anymore (this is the second cd drive its had). I would rather not spend money on a cd drive or anything, and was wondering if there was anyway to use a boot disk to format it, then if there was any way to install network drivers and use a network to install windows. That at least is my present theory of how to go about this, but I'm not sure if it's even possible, and I'm searching around online right now.
I have a friend who has a slow Acer laptop. I told him I would be happy to reformat his hard drive and reinstall everything back to it. However I told him if you don't have the XP cd then forget it. lol. Now let's say he can't find the XP cd. What are my other options if I wanna reformat his hard drive?
I was given an old Dell laptop to try to see if I can fix it. I'm not sure what was done to mess it up, but I thought I'd stick the reinstallation disk in and see what happens. When I put the reinstallation disk into the laptop to reinstall it won't kick in and automatically play. The laptop just sits there. I try to get windows xp to reload using F5, but still nothing. I tried every option under F5 and nothing will load. Its like the computer doesn't have anything in it. How can I just get the reinstallation disk to load?
I'm trying to reformat an Acer Laptop 120GB hard drive that had problems before with VISTA so I'm using my copy of Win XP Pro, (I own the Volume disk, and have used it several times with no problems). When I try and do a reformat it hangs at 80%.I've used MEMtest86, no erorrs, I've tried Ultimate bootCD, no probs, I've tried SystemRescueCD, no help. I ran CHKDSK from a DOS prompt no problems. I ws going to replace the MBR but it says that I might not be able to access my drive if it doesn't work...is that true ?Right now I'm trying a MS-DOS FORMAT from a command prompt and its taking forever. After 20 minutes its only at 1%.
A friend gave me her Compac Presario 2100 to wipe clean to be sold.I reformatted the hard drive and now the computer will not boot. The machine runs for about 15 seconds and dies. Running XP Home.
Is there a way to partition the primary disk on a computer without reformatting?A computer that I inherited (HP Pavillion) has a 120Gb hard drive partitioned into two sections C drive 104Gb NTFS primary D drive 7Gb FAT32 recovery I would like to split the primary into two sections, if possible without reformatting
I recently tried to reinstall windows xp, but the installation was interrupted and left me with a partially installed windows on my hard drive. Now, whenever I try to install again, it gives me the error: NTLDR is missing. I made a msdos boot disc to reformat my drive such that I can try installing windows again. However, I have two hard drive (one for windows and programs and one for storage) and I don't know which one is which letter. How can I find this information, so that I don't accidentally wipe my storage drive?
The USB port on my Laptop has been broken by accident and I would like to know whether it is possible to replace it somehow, by myself. If not, could you please suggest me how it would be possible to have a USB port on my laptop.
We have a two year old Toshiba laptop, my son tried to clean the screen and cracked it. I have about 2 inches that I can see.I want to connect it to an external monitor, when I hook it up, I can only see on the external screen until it boots up and then it clicks over to the lap top.
my laptop screen is broken and i added a monitor to startup on , only problem is it loads ok in safe mode and only goes to loading in normal mode and slows down cosiderably
how come when i reformat, if i do a full format NTFS i get an error at 100% saying the disk may be damaged..butu when i do a quick format, it works fine..?
I am having to reinstall XP - the setup starts and then reformats the hard drive. After it has done that it won't start the program installation it just keeps looping and reformatting the hdd
I have an old laptop. It was used in my parent's office, and since they got new computers I get to take the old one home. However, the use in the office took its toll and now it takes hours to open certain programs like firefox, it can't detect my home internet at all, and the cd drive is broken.
I wanted to reformat it, so without the cd drive I had to copy the contents of the OS disk to a USB flash drive to install XP from there. However, I had over 10 gigs worth of office data I wanted to back up, and without internet access or an external storage drive I wanted to make a primary partition(that can act as a backup which survives a reformat) out of available spaces of my C: using the program called Partitionmagic
I was given an 'old' Dell laptop (Celeron, 600Mhz, 256MB RAM, 20GB HDD, NIC card, floppy disk drive) as well as the reinstallation CD that has XP Pro on it. I've got two roadblocks that I can't seem to get around: The logon is password protected. This laptop was used by a company where each employee logged onto a network. I have the username and password, but, since I'm not connected to that network, it does no good. The computer can't authenticate the password and I don't have access to the network.The laptop came with a floppy drive, not a CD drive.
Is there any way possible to get to the C: prompt to reformat the HD? I am able to get into the boot order setup. Once the HD is reformatted,How can I get the reinstallation done without a CD drive? I've already thought about (and actually copied the CD to) a USB thumb drive, but the boot order doesn't give an option to boot from a USB.Is it worth the $10 - $20 to get a CD drive for this laptop off of eBay?
I have just tried to restore my laptop to factory settings using the recovery DVD. however part way through this process my DVD drive has broken and now I cannot boot from the DVD and windows will not start as it did prior to this (I am posting this from a friends computer)
i recently bought an acer laptop with windows media center installed by the company along with many other programs id like to get rid of. i have a copy of windows xp professional (32bit?). i first go into bios and change it to boot from cd first. i save and exit, my laptop reboots, after the bios screen, the screen goes black with one of those mini white lines you see in cmd.exe when your typing, on the top left corner for around 10 seconds. it then proceeds to the windows xp loading screen. it totally skips the boot from cd (windows cd). the model of my laptop is AMD turion 64x2 mobile technology TL-52. im not sure if 64x2 means that my laptop is 64bit, and my windows xp professional cd is only 32bit?
I'm about to reformat a hard drive due to some error which will not allow me to fix a registry problem. Looks like a nuke and pave. I have taken the hard drive out of thelaptop and have recovered all user files Since I'm going to reload this... I want to find the driver files (WinXP may find for me)Where would I find driver files (directory) I could save before I reformat this drive.
This is prob an oldie you get sick of answering, but I've tried to use my windows xp discs to reformat my sony laptop to get rid of everything. The problem is things like Norton antivirus and other programs stay on there. How can I get rid of everythingand start from scratch?
Thinkpad T41 with a OEM xp pro installed. This laptop is no longer usable, I would like to take the hard drive installed and install in another T41 with similiar configuration. I would assume XP will recognize the new laptop and cause problems.
OK, so I made sure my BIOS was booting from CDROM and first priority, and then HDD. I put the Windows XP Pro CD in and the little windows pop-up screen came up and I exited that and shut down my computer.I turn my computer back on and I cannot get ANYTHING on my monitor.I have two slots on the back of my eVGA 6800 PCI-E card.
I have run a windows repair twice, and no luck either time. After the first repair the computer worked fine, until I installed SP2, and lost the taskbar, and couldn't fix that (you can view that thread here: http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt...tart-menu.html. After the recent repair everything went fine until I tried to install SP2 again. I will start the computer, and windows will load. Everything is fine until the login screen appears (windows XP home ed.). The screen lasts for about 1.5 seconds and then it goes BSOD.
I was wondering if anyone can help with reformatting my hard drive. I am looking to reformat and install a clean xp. I have already transfered my files to an external drive. I was wondering if there is a;website if anyone has instructions how to re-format and clean install whats the difference when doing it from windows xp cd or a boot from windows 98?
I just updated my XP and when it rebooted, I got an error message saying 0x80004005, Also, I have seem to lost my Windows XP CD. I updated with the Genuine Advantage tool and errors started popping up. I'm not sure what to do now. I googled and It said something about a corrupt registry.
I'm trying to reformat an XP SP1 computer, with just one hard drive, a CDburner and a floppy that doesn't work. Whenver I try format c: (from the C drive) I get this: Quote: Format cannot run because the volume is in use by another process.Format may run if this volume is dismounted first ALL OPENED HANDLES TO THIS VOLUME WOULD THEN BE INVALID.Would you like to force a dismount on this volume? (Y/N) y Cannot lock the drive. The volume is still in use.
I have decided to reformat my hard drive. I've transferred my files to my backup disk. I need very specific instruction on this process. I could use details regarding process itself and any precautions or hints. I am running Windows XP Professional X64.
I have a gateway amd athlon 1.10 Ghz running microsoft windows server 2003 datacenter edition. The os was installed by my former roommate, without my permission, and I believe it may not be a legal copy. I've been trying to reformat the hard drive and install a copy of Windows XP Professional, which is legal, but it tells me wrong dos version whenever I try to do this. My former roommate also partitioned the drive, also without my permission. I would like to remove the partition as well, but don't really know how.
basically something happened to my computer so i want to reinstall windows xp again. usually it starts up and then when it should normally go to the login screen, it shows a blank black screen. so i tried to boot it from the windows xp cd, and yeah it says 'press any key to boot from cd', or something like that. so i do it and i know after it boots from the cd i can choose to reformat the hard drive...but it freezes every time i press the key to make it reboot from the cd. i haven't seen any online tutorials that go over this..
Ok, I am just about to get up enough enough nerve to reformat my hard drive and have a couple of questions (for now).After reformtting and before beginning the install of XP Pro, do I need to disconnect periphials (printer, scanner, etc)?Do I stay connected to the internet via cable modem and router or should those be disconnected?I have 2 computers networked. Will resetablishing the network happen automatically or will windows walk me through it, or
