Could I boot from an external CD drive

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

Unless your BIOS boot options permit booting from
an external device, you won't be able to.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"NickC" wrote:

| I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with Win XP Professional.
|
| THE CD (D) Drive on my laptop is malfunctioning, it is not reading any CD.
| I guess I have to replace it eventually. I am currently using my external
| CD Backpack drive to read and write CD's.
|
| I need to format my hard drive and reinstall Win XP Professional.
|
| How could I boot up from this external drive to reinstall XP from DOS. Or
| any suggestions as to how I could reinstall XP from my external drive

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:25:33 -0400, "NickC" <nickcwpg@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with Win XP Professional.
>
>THE CD (D) Drive on my laptop is malfunctioning, it is not reading any CD.
>I guess I have to replace it eventually. I am currently using my external
>CD Backpack drive to read and write CD's.
>
>I need to format my hard drive and reinstall Win XP Professional.
>
>How could I boot up from this external drive to reinstall XP from DOS. Or
>any suggestions as to how I could reinstall XP from my external drive
>

1. To be able to boot from and external USB drive the bios will
need to allow this.
2. If you have a floppy drive (not all modern laptops do), you
could boot from this using DOS (WIN98SE version is recommended)
configured with USB drivers. DUSE is suitable and can be obtained by
searching Google.
3. If your laptop does not have an internal floppy drive it is
probable that you can boot from an external drive as I believe (not
certain) that laptops without internal floppy drives will all permit
booting from a USB external drive. If that is the case you can boot
using the WINXP installation disk directly from your external CD
drive. No need to go the 'DOS' route.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

I have a floppy drive.
I did download that USB DUSE file. I booted with it but I get a message
that indicates that the only drive (D) being recognised is the internal
malfunctioning drive. How do I change this drive reference to my E
(external) drive.

I tried editing autoexec.bat file but when I typed edit autoexec.bat I get a
blank screen.

Obviously my knowledge of DOS is limited. Any ideas???



"Edward W. Thompson" <thomeduk1@btopenworld.com> wrote in message
news:lf6gg11kbkc477c45o0ai3hq7qaj99vl84@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:25:33 -0400, "NickC" <nickcwpg@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> >I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with Win XP Professional.
> >
> >THE CD (D) Drive on my laptop is malfunctioning, it is not reading any
CD.
> >I guess I have to replace it eventually. I am currently using my
external
> >CD Backpack drive to read and write CD's.
> >
> >I need to format my hard drive and reinstall Win XP Professional.
> >
> >How could I boot up from this external drive to reinstall XP from DOS.
Or
> >any suggestions as to how I could reinstall XP from my external drive
> >
>
> 1. To be able to boot from and external USB drive the bios will
> need to allow this.
> 2. If you have a floppy drive (not all modern laptops do), you
> could boot from this using DOS (WIN98SE version is recommended)
> configured with USB drivers. DUSE is suitable and can be obtained by
> searching Google.
> 3. If your laptop does not have an internal floppy drive it is
> probable that you can boot from an external drive as I believe (not
> certain) that laptops without internal floppy drives will all permit
> booting from a USB external drive. If that is the case you can boot
> using the WINXP installation disk directly from your external CD
> drive. No need to go the 'DOS' route.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics (More info?)

"NickC" <nickcwpg@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e2%23eQigpFHA.764@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
>I have a Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop with Win XP Professional.
>
> THE CD (D) Drive on my laptop is malfunctioning, it is not reading any CD.
> I guess I have to replace it eventually. I am currently using my external
> CD Backpack drive to read and write CD's.
>
> I need to format my hard drive and reinstall Win XP Professional.
>
> How could I boot up from this external drive to reinstall XP from DOS. Or
> any suggestions as to how I could reinstall XP from my external drive
>
>

It's possible to install XP on that computer, but it's a little tricky, and
you need another computer to install that hard drive in temporarily. You can
get an adapter to install it into a desktop machine.

The way I've done it is to create 2 partitions on the hard drive, one for
the contents of the CD (the second, smaller partition), and the first
partition is where you install the OS.

Then, you start the XP install onto the laptop drive's first partition, but
you only let it proceed to the point where it wants to reboot. Turn the
computer off. Install the drive back into the laptop, and continue. At this
point it can boot from the hard drive, and all of the XP files are on that
partition, so you don't need CD or floppy.

I've done this a couple of times, and I've gotten it to work. Seems to me it
wasn't without problems, though, although I'm not sure what the issues were.
You're also going to need to install drivers and such; how you go about that
depends on the laptop and what's working. You can network it and transfer
drivers that way, or use a USB device if that is working.

Good luck.