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spikemixture

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spikemixture

4 Posts

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July 1st, 2006 05:00

REinstall with no Floppy or CD drive

I own a Latitude 410 with no cd drive or floppy.

The HD was doing strange things so decided to reformat.

But of course now cannot re-install as have no drives.

I have the original Dell XP pro disc and have "copied" it onto the hard drive (by taking it out and copying via an external drive).

So how do I boot to the C drive ?

Dell support said offered to sell me a drive but aprt from that said sorry we can't help you. Which just makes me flabbergasted (that's being polite)!!

I have USB keys but can't get them to be bootable.

spike..
  • M

    msgale

    2 Intern

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    2507 Posts

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    Posted July 1st, 2006 15:00

    The Latitude was designed to use a optical drive as the installation device.  Microsoft designed Windows XP to be installed from a CD/DVD drive, you may be out of luck if you don't have one.  Did Dell sell you a 410 without an optical drive?
  • S

    spikemixture

    4 Posts

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    Posted July 2nd, 2006 02:00

    Thanks,

    This laptop has NO inbuilt CD or floppy. It's a small laptop and that's why I bought it.
    What about a network install. There is an option in the bios to boot from inbuilt network card.

    Spike
  • M

    msgale

    2 Intern

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    2507 Posts

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    Posted July 2nd, 2006 04:00

    I have no idea how to perform a network boot.  None of my PC have that capability.  I have just read the Dell Latitude D410 documentation, and it says to boot from Dell supplied CD using the CD-ROM.  I am also confused, since almost all third-party software is supplied on CDs how can you load any.
  • V

    VBdotNet

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    Posted July 2nd, 2006 18:00


    @spikemixture wrote:
    Thanks,

    This laptop has NO inbuilt CD or floppy. It's a small laptop and that's why I bought it.
    What about a network install. There is an option in the bios to boot from inbuilt network card.

    Spike

    Looking at the on-line users guide:

    The Boot Order page displays a general list of the bootable devices that may be installed in your computer, including but not limited to the following:
    • Diskette Drive
    • Modular Bay HDD
    • Internal HDD
    • CD/DVD/CD-RW Drive

    During the boot routine, the computer starts at the top of the list and scans each enabled device for the operating system start-up files. When the computer finds the files, it stops searching and starts the operating system.

    Go into the BIOS and move the CD/DVD to the top of the boot order then borrow an external USB CD drive -  or go Best Buy with your notebook and and tell the Geek Squad folks that you'd like to purchase an external USB CD drive and want to test the drive to see if it works in your notebook before buying one - and ask them if they have an open one that they could connect to your notebook. Put your XP CD in it and see if it boots. If it does then you can get the cheapest external CD drive to do the job. Otherwise, you may have to go to Dell and get buy a CD drive for the D/Bay.

    Message Edited by VBdotNet on 07-02-200603:53 PM

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