No cd-rom to install XP

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biggent85

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I have a compaq armamda 7800. I recently upgraded to a newer bigger hd. And my problem is I need to reintstall windows xp but i havent got a cd rom drive to install. Although u do have a external cd rom drive but does me no good with a formated hd. If anyone can reply on how to do this plase reply it would be greatly appreciate the help.
 
Compaq Armada 7800 Notebook (266-MHz Pentium II)

Pretty sure it won't take XP and all updates
You can either install Windows 98 or ME via floppy, or throw it away (either way is good ;) )
 
It will take xp because that is what was on the old hd. But when it was installed it had 98 and the external cd rom was used to install the xp then. When the old hd was in the pc it did in fact take all the updates with no problems.
 
Will your BIOS let you boot from a USB CD drive? Many will but yours is old so I don't know.
 
No. I've tried it but it did not have an option to boot from usb from the BIOS. I wish it would but it will not. Ty for the reply though.
 
Yea I know

Here's a good breakdown and what its got:.www1
It says it came with DVD Drive (not bad for an old computer)

Yes DVD drive was optional with some setups. but unfortunatly for me mine dident come with the optional DVD drive. I have an external HP cd-writer 8200 series that runs on usb conection. But there is no option to boot from it. I may have to find an windows 98 diskette. Install it and then install the xp from there. But thats what im trying to get away from. I already bought the xp I hate to buy 98 just to use to install the xp though.
 
How feasible would it be to install a DVD drive now? If it was an option, the connections should be there already. Maybe you can check. You've already replaced a hard drive. Perhaps you might need a new cable, but how much more complicated would an optical drive be?
 
If you know a friend with a desktop PC, you could do this. Buy an adapter for your hard drive (it will be a small IDE right ?) You can get these small-to-large IDE adapters for less than £1.50. With that, add your hard drive to your friends PC in temporary replacement of a CD for instance.

Then on the friends PC install and use a partitioning package e.g. EASEUS free, to create two partitions on your new hard drive (maybe 20Gb as NTFS for XP, and the second as NTFS all the rest for the data. OR nearly all in NTFS for XP and the install in a 2Gb partition at the end of the drive, all according to your preference). Copy the entire install CD of Windows XP onto THE SECOND partition, then you put everything back together, and using a suitable DOS boot disk, boot your laptop on floppy and install from the cd copy already on your hard drive. (Enter 'D:\setup' if you are at A: in Dos)

If you know what to do, it is even easy to make your hard drive C: bootable under Dos in the course of copying the CD there in the first place. I think Easeus will do the bootable bit as well, but not absolutely sure.
 
How feasible would it be to install a DVD drive now? If it was an option, the connections should be there already. Maybe you can check. You've already replaced a hard drive. Perhaps you might need a new cable, but how much more complicated would an optical drive be?

It wouldent be hard at all to do. Since the laptop came with a optional CD drive or a DVD drive. The only thing keeping me from doing so is the shortage of finding one. Because I refuse to buy off ebay where I have found a few of each and a few combo drives that are compatable with my system.
 
I don't know which interface your notebook uses (SATA or IDE) but if you're interested you could check out the offerings from Newegg: Newegg

On the linked page look to your left and narrow it down (SATA or IDE) and then the type of slim CD/DVD drive that interests you.

There are other online sellers too but this is one good example.
 
Ok guys thanks for the help. I done a little more research that I shoulda done in the first place. And found that my system is infact bootable from USB. But now i have a new problem. I need to get into the BIOS to finish with the install of xp. Problem is with the new HDD there is no BIOS partition located on my HDD. Now what?
 
Bootdisk.com has quite a few floppy and CD images, you can download a bootable floppy with drivers to use almost anything you want.

Code:
http://www.bootdisk.com
 
oh wow. I really don't recommend running XP on a system that old. XP is REALLY slow on any system with less than 1gb of ram and unbearable with 512mb of ram and just hell with anything less. I suggest using 98SE.
 
oh wow. I really don't recommend running XP on a system that old. XP is REALLY slow on any system with less than 1gb of ram and unbearable with 512mb of ram and just hell with anything less. I suggest using 98SE.

Well it no longer has 512mb of ram it has been upgraded to over 2gb of ram. But getting the OS on the HDD no longer is the problem. My problem now is i cant get into the BIOS to change my boot sequence to USB first. Because there is a partition on the OEM HDD with the BIOS on it and cant get into it to remove it from there and put it on the new HDD.
 
Bootdisk.com has quite a few floppy and CD images, you can download a bootable floppy with drivers to use almost anything you want.

Code:
http://www.bootdisk.com

Bootdisk.com has nothing to help me at all tried a few from them and cant do anything without the partition with the BIOS in it. Thank you for your reply though. Any input is better than none at all I always say. LOL
 
Proper Win9X, XP or even Linux boot disk with USB drivers will allow you to see and access your external drive then initiate setup!.
 
I foud this on Compaq's site:

Setup_DIAGS.txt
By Rainald Taesler
May 07, 2004

Complete file attached.

1. Download the following SoftPaqs to a directory on your hard drive. The files downloaded are self-extracting executables with a filename based on the SoftPaq Number.

SP9962 - Computer Setup for Portables v. 2.01 J (24 Jan 99)
hxxp://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/notebooks/us/download/8089.html DEAD

SP12906 - Personal Computer Diagnostics v. 10.39 A (10 Mar 00)
hxxp://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/notebooks/us/download/7106.html DEAD

Important: Do *not* download the newer version 10.40A. For older machines it must be 10.39A <!!!>

2. Create two directories (folders), one for each of the SPs and store the downloads there.
Execute the downloaded files and follow the on-screen instructions.

a) The SP for the Setup will create a diskette directly.
b) The SP for Diagnostics will creat a new subdirectory (Pdiag) and unpack the files to there.
To create the diskette, go to this new subdir, run MAKEDISK.bat and follow the on-screen instructions.

Caveat: We received quite a number of reports that problems occured when the Diagnostics diskette was created on a computer running under Windows 2000 (diskette not booting properly)
I therefore recommend to cretae the diskette on a computer running on any other OS.

The problem does not occur when using the newer version
"Personal Computer Diagnostics version 10.40 A (7 Dec 00)"
SP16085
hxxp://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/files/desktops/us/download/9260.html DEAD

This one does run only on newer models, explictely the 7xxx series.


3. After the diskettes have been created, you may delete the self-extracting files downloaded in step one, as well as the directory folders and files created in step two.

Having created the diskettes you may run Diagnostics and Setup by booting from the diskette.

SP9962 and the readme
SP16085 and the readme
 
biggent85 said:
My problem now is i cant get into the BIOS to change my boot sequence to USB first. Because there is a partition on the OEM HDD with the BIOS on it and cant get into it to remove it from there and put it on the new HDD.
The BIOS is on the motherboard, not the hard drive. I'm not sure which key you need to strike to get into Setup (BIOS) but it should say on the starting logo screen and I don't mean the Windows logo screen.

For the purposes of installing Windows only connect the hard drive you want to put Windows on. Leave the other one out.
 
mailpup, for Compaq is usually F10, the older systems from Compaq as in this Armada 7800, have a Diagnostics Partition on the hard drive to view and change CMOS values, this could be done either from DOS or windows.

True that it is on the motherboard but without the Diagnostics Partition, F10 will not bring the utility up.

Default boot sequence, should work but we are talking Compaq here and an older one at that with no internal optical drive!

I would do the latest BIOS (ROMPAQ I believe it's called) as well.
 
I need to get into the BIOS to finish with the install of xp. Problem is with the new HDD there is no BIOS partition located on my HDD. Now what?

The bios is in the motherboard, not a HDD. Woops, you got told that already. Wow, TechSpot is REALLY slow tonight !
 
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