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Installing XP on an external HD

Blogs > Biochemist
Post a Reply
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-01-31 19:30:27
January 31 2010 18:46 GMT
#1
Editing for clarity:

I have an old IBM Thinkpad X41 with a blank HDD and no cd-rom drive.

I want to install windows XP on it.

I have a 4gb USB drive and an external laptop enclosure.

My desktop is running windows 7. I have the install cd for windows xp.

Ideas?

micronesia
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States24676 Posts
January 31 2010 18:49 GMT
#2
If I understand, you don't want to install XP on an external HD... you want to install it from one... is that correct?
ModeratorThere are animal crackers for people and there are people crackers for animals.
blabber
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
United States4448 Posts
January 31 2010 18:51 GMT
#3
for the way you're doing it, you have to restart your computer, boot from the cd, then install it onto your laptop hard drive from there (don't try to install it within Windows 7).

You can also google to find out how to install Windows XP using a USB flash drive
blabberrrrr
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 18:53 GMT
#4
No, I have an empty laptop HDD and I want to put XP on it. I have an install CD, but I can't use it on the laptop directly since the laptop does not have a cd drive.
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 18:55 GMT
#5
On February 01 2010 03:51 blabber wrote:
for the way you're doing it, you have to restart your computer, boot from the cd, then install it onto your laptop hard drive from there (don't try to install it within Windows 7).

You can also google to find out how to install Windows XP using a USB flash drive


I'm using an external enclosure (USB) for the laptop drive. Will windows install even be able to see it?
Patriot.dlk
Profile Blog Joined October 2004
Sweden5462 Posts
January 31 2010 18:59 GMT
#6
If your computer lacks CD-ROM you install windows from usb-drive. Guides for this is all over. Your method is unheard of and I'm unsure if it even exists guides for that.

This is me speaking and naturally I could be wrong or not have all the facts. Good luck
iceburn
Profile Blog Joined February 2008
United States303 Posts
January 31 2010 19:05 GMT
#7
Let me see if I get what you are saying

you have a laptop that doesn't have a cd tray to have an cd install
so you will take your harddrive out of the laptop
hook that drive up to a usb external enclosure
and attempt to install windows xp to that external through your desktop.

okay if that is what you are doing why not, convert your install from the cd to a usb install and install xp via usb straight to your laptop bypassing the need to take your drive out

http://komku.blogspot.com/2008/11/install-windows-xp-using-usb-flash-disk.html

its fairly easy to do

good luck. if i misunderstood disregard.
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 19:18 GMT
#8
Thanks, I didn't know that was possible. It looks like this thinkpad model supports USB booting, so I'll give it a try. Will report back in a bit
Cambium
Profile Blog Joined June 2004
United States16368 Posts
January 31 2010 19:21 GMT
#9
Your post is excruciatingly confusing, this is what I extracted from it:

- You have a Laptop with no CD-drive and no OS
- You want to install XP on aforementioned laptop
- You want to take the HDD out of the laptop, connecting the HDD to your desktop through an external HDD case
- You want to install XP on the HDD through your desktop onto the harddrive.

Your proposed approach might work, but I don't understand why anyone would bother. The easier solution is to load the XP installation CD onto a USB drive, and install XP directly from the USB drive.

Tada
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
maga33
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States247 Posts
January 31 2010 19:23 GMT
#10
or you can prob find one of those usb cd drives...
The victorious strategist only seeks battle after the victory has been won, whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights and afterwards looks for victory.
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 19:27 GMT
#11
PetoUSB does not recognize my (3.76 gb) usb drive
Dullahan
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States248 Posts
January 31 2010 19:33 GMT
#12
http://www.techtroupe.com/os/windows-xp/how-to-install-windows-xp-on-a-laptop-with-no-cd-drive/

I've used this before and it works great. Note that you'll probably need to run command prompt as an administrator if your desktop is using Vista or Windows 7.

The only potential downside is that the root drive of your laptop will be whatever letter it was when you plugged it in to the desktop. That is, if your laptop hard drive was mounted on your desktop as E:, it will still be E: when you put it back in your laptop. I'd expect there ought to be a way to change it back to C: after the install is finished though.
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 20:41 GMT
#13
No luck so far. Can't get laptop to successfully boot off the flash drive, even after formatting and using bootsect to make it bootable.
jello24
Profile Joined July 2009
Canada327 Posts
January 31 2010 20:53 GMT
#14
On February 01 2010 05:41 Biochemist wrote:
No luck so far. Can't get laptop to successfully boot off the flash drive, even after formatting and using bootsect to make it bootable.

have you tried setting the boot order in your bios? if your flash drive is always booting AFTER your hard drive, you're never gonna be able to run it.
just lurking around...
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 21:18 GMT
#15
On February 01 2010 05:53 jello24 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On February 01 2010 05:41 Biochemist wrote:
No luck so far. Can't get laptop to successfully boot off the flash drive, even after formatting and using bootsect to make it bootable.

have you tried setting the boot order in your bios? if your flash drive is always booting AFTER your hard drive, you're never gonna be able to run it.


Yeah, it even lets me hit f12 and manually pick which device to boot from, regardless of the boot order. I get either BOOTMGR is missing or NTLDR is missing errors, depending on how I formatted the drive.
Patriot.dlk
Profile Blog Joined October 2004
Sweden5462 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-01-31 21:39:46
January 31 2010 21:37 GMT
#16
Why won't you install from a memory stick? very weird this is

edit: Missed your replies sorry about that. You can't use any memory stick iirc it can be a maximum of two GB in size and maybe other limits
Biochemist
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
United States1008 Posts
January 31 2010 21:39 GMT
#17
On February 01 2010 06:37 Patriot.dlk wrote:
Why won't you install from a memory stick? very weird this is


Trying to get laptop to boot from memory stick.
Patriot.dlk
Profile Blog Joined October 2004
Sweden5462 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-01-31 21:46:50
January 31 2010 21:43 GMT
#18
Yeah I edited. You need to google this more and you will find a recipe that works. Pretty sure about that at least.

edit: I found this and I hardly read it but seemed legit
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-22_11-5928902.html

edit 2: it's dated way back so you could probably outgoogle me easy
Dullahan
Profile Blog Joined April 2009
United States248 Posts
January 31 2010 22:28 GMT
#19
Did you try the method I posted above?

Basically the gist of is, you take out your laptop's hard drive, plug it in to your desktop, and start the setup program on the install disc through command prompt. It'll then copy over the XP setup files to your laptop hard drive, at which point you can put it back in your laptop and boot it up to let it finish installing.
LxRogue
Profile Blog Joined March 2007
United States1415 Posts
January 31 2010 22:36 GMT
#20
I have heard that windows may prevent you from using a USB drive to run your OS, but i've also heard that it works.

-Your BIOS needs to support booting from a USB stick
-You may need to download a tool/program to make the USB stick bootable
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