Hello:

I'm a relative newbie at advanced installations. I have reecieved a Sony Vaio laptop which noes NOT have either a cd-rom or a floppy, nor access to a docking station. I have been able to take the HDD out and install it on another laptop which DOES have a cd-rom to be able to fromat, partition, etc.

I would like to be able to do any of the following:

A) Make the drive bootable in such a way that when I boot the Vaio up, the WinXP installation begins.

Make the drive bootable with USB CD-ROM suppot so that I can begin the WinXP installation from an external CD drive.

C) Make the drive bottable in such a way that I can at least begin the WinXP installation from the HDD and then finish from the externaql CD drive.

Any help/suggestions would be of great appreciation. I understand that this is an awkward situation.

p.s. I have tried to use a IEEE1394 drive to boot off of the BIOS settings, but for some reason it is not recognized.


Thanks in advance.

This method works, tested and verified:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=16713

You will need a bootable USB stick, but you can easily adapt it to a multiboot solution (you format and install DOS 7.1 from Windows 98 to the hard disk, boot from it, then run WINNT.EXE, hinted here:


If you are satisfied with FAT32 formatting.

Or if you are satisfied with at least one partition formatted as FAT32, in a multipartitioned drive.

FAT32 partitions can be later converted to NTFS by using command line utility convert, though actually I do prefer having First Active Primary Partition formatted as FAT16 or FAT32.


A different approach is hinted here:
http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=61384
and here:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=17425
( a rather more complex and NOT tested/verified method)

Or you can simply run, on the "other" system, and with the PROPER <driveletter> and <path>:


this will setup your drive in a way that, as soon as it is booted it will start setup, using install files copied to the same HD and not needing any external CD.

You will have to add to the hard disk, before moving it to the laptop, ALL the needed drivers and EVERY other file that might be needed before another means of accessing "outside" sources (say network) is available.

some reference:
http://www.quepublishing.com/articles/article.asp?p=102260
http://winsupersite.com/showcase/win2k_cmdline_setup.asp
(syntax of WINNT32 parameters is still the same)

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Jul 1 2006, 11:30 AM

I must say that the help from this site is awesome! And to prove it I am writing this thatnk you reply from the vaio daptop. I was not easy...I actually woud up placing th i386 folder in the d:\ drive of the HDD to be able to maintain the setup from crashing, BUT IT WORKED!!!!


TYTYTYTYTYTYTYTYTYTY!!!!! jaclaz

Happy it worked.

jaclaz