Loading operating system, with no cd-rom drive

Jimbo said:

Hi guys,

I have just been given an old Compaq laptop, should be fine for word documents and hopefully the internet.
The problem I have, is that it came without a cd-rom drive, and it has been completed wiped with no operating system.
How can I load on a operating system ? Is it possible from a flash drive ? And how on earth do I set the Bios to do this ? Or could I map a drive from my other laptop ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.............Jimbo

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there is a xp usb version, got it somewhere i'll have a look if i still have it, but i never used it so dont know how you use it or if it works

if its a really old laptop it wont boot from usb.
what i usually do is take the hard drive out an put it into a machine with cd drive and install everything there. i put the drivers on the hard drive but i dont install it until i put the hard drive back into the original computer.

u need to borrow/buy cdrom or external cdrom and boot up xp from that.

hit F2 or whatever option that comes up to load bios. F12 may also give boot options.

check on screen at power up to see what keys to press

thanks guys.

If it's as old as it seems then it won't run XP.

You may be lucky and get W98 to load if not then it's W95.

Here is a copy of windows 95 floppies on ebay 12.50 BuyItNow

Could not find a copy of window98. Of course if u can get a usb cd that has 95 drivers then u can probably update to 98????

worth a thought

i did it once.
got an old laptop without cd, i put w3.11 on using disks.

then connected my other laptop by direct cable and used the cd in that machine to load w98.

worked a treat. you can do it quite easily.

you may be able to do in DOS

By the way, as far as I remember, you will have to load DOS before W95

notmeatall3 said:

Here is a copy of windows 95 floppies on ebay 12.50 BuyItNow

Could not find a copy of window98. Of course if u can get a usb cd that has 95 drivers then u can probably update to 98????

worth a thought

Click to expand...

It is extremely unlikely that if the machine is as old as he is intimating that it will have USB ports.

I don't even remember if W95 supports USB.

pipsqueaker said:

It is extremely unlikely that if the machine is as old as he is intimating that it will have USB ports.

I don't even remember if W95 supports USB.

Click to expand...

You may be right. but :-

Jimbo said:

Is it possible from a flash drive ?

Click to expand...

and Yep supports USB with versions B & C with service pack 2.1 installed.

Pls note there are no USB for WINDOWS 95A.

You could try this tho. download a win98 boot disk.

Then follow the tut on this page about installing DOS USB support.

I'm not entirely sure, but there should be a stripped out version of Linux (or DOS) that you could boot from Floppy and the network to a computer with the windows files on.

As others have said, it's probably easiest to remove the hard drive, fit it in a PC and copy the contents of the windows 98 install CD to the hard drive itself, then run setup.exe from the hard drive once fitted back in the laptop.
Or use floppies lol. We have windows 95/98 brand new on floppies in our server room somewhere lol, would put money on at least one of the discs being bad though!

Guys,

Been away for 2 days, come back and you have all been chatting amongst yourselves, discussing my thread and suggesting solutions - Many Many thanks.
The laptop, itself is a Compaq evo N160, Pentium 3, 256MB of ram expandable up to 1GB. - It would appear worth trying to get working ! ! The sticker suggests it came with Windows 98, but from the Compaq website it suggests that it is compatible with XP.
Going to try and find a win98 boot disk and modify for USB as notmeatall3 suggested.
Or remove the hard drive and attach to PC - are the connections the same as any other hard disk ?

All your help guys is greatly appreciated.......Jimbo

Why didn't you tell us all that in the first place.

It's not as old as we all thought.

Still, good luck

LOL, i was expecting an old 100-200mhz job. I'm pretty sure you will be able to attach an external CD and install XP from there. (Would upgrade the ram if installing XP though).

The hard drive will have the same "style" of connector, but it's not a straight fit. You'll need a converter, couple of quid off eBay.

Just incase u want m8 here is a link for xp boot floppies. Just incase u want to install XP. Just click on the appropirate one

XP Home OEM

XP Home SP1

XPHome SP2

XP Pro OEM

XP Pro SP1

XP Pro SP2

Thanks Notmeatall3, trbd & Pipsqueaker, all you help is greatly appreciated.
Will let you know how I get on, or be back with more questions ! !

I had assumed originally that the Laptop would not be worth messing about with, as the college that my wife works at, just gave them away as they were up-grading - and they basically said to her that they had stripped all software, and as they came with no CD-rom drives, they were basically giving them to other people to throw away instead of them ! !

with that spec of machine you are probably best loading win2000, whist it will run xp it will be slow even if u put more memory in it. win2000 will be much quicker and is very stable if u load to sp6 i think is last 1.

as others have said if u can put disk into a desktop machine with 2.5" to ide converter or laptop and copy o/s to it and then put back in this laptop and then install.

Win 2k was a good stable os.

here are the boot disks

Disk 1

Disk 2

Disk 3

Disk 4

You'll also need makeboot.exe and makebt32.exe