Can I install Windows from an ext. CD drive?

[Relztrah]

Here's the situation: I have a Toshiba Portege 2000 notebook in need of a new hard drive which I can buy used. The HD will not have an OS installed. This model laptop doesn't have a floppy drive or a CD drive.

I own an Iomega external CDRW/DVD ROM that plugs into a USB. Is there any way to configure it so that I can boot to this ext. CD drive and install Windows from there? There are no DOS drivers available for this Iomega device. I don't think the BIOS normally sees the USB ports...but maybe there's a way.

[Paul Komski]

It can be difficult or impossible to boot from a USB device if the BIOS doesnt intrinsically support it. Check the boot order options.

Which version of windows and does the notebook have a NIC.

The only other "straightforward" approach would be to set up the drive beforehand in a caddy on another PC. It would need a small bootable FAT16 volume at the start of the drive just running basic DOS and to which the contents of the i386 folder for WinNT/XP or the Win9X folder for Win98/ME inside it. Once replaced into your notebook it should boot itself to the DOS prompt (such a DOS partition should boot up from most PCs) from where you would run Win9x/setup or i386/winnt to run the relevant installation.

[Relztrah]

Apparently this laptop, which was given to me due to the bad HDD, is sold with an external CD-ROM that plugs into the USB. In the BIOS boot order there are options to boot to the CD-ROM and also LAN. I don't have the original ext. CD-ROM but I connected my Iomega ext. CD-ROM/burner and put the first system restore CD in (with Win XP), but the system didn't boot to it. Perhaps that's because I'm not using a Toshiba CD-ROM or due to the defective HDD.

Yes, the laptop has a NIC and one of the boot options is LAN but I have no idea how to do that. I would rather attempt this than try to create a DOS partition on the HDD which is something way out of my league.

[Mini-Me]

I agree with Paul here.
Generally speaking, modern m/boards allow booting from a USB device, but older laptops(anything other then a new laptop) probably will not.

What Paul suggested is probably the best option - 2.5" - 3.5" HDD adaptors are very cheap, and this would allow you to easily copy the required files to the drive, then put the drive in the laptop.

I have setup laptops with no CD-drive with Windows 95/98 before, by the use of a ZIP drive - install GUEST.EXE and copy the 95/98 CABS to the laptop drive - slowly!
:D

[Relztrah]

I have setup laptops with no CD-drive with Windows 95/98 before, by the use of a ZIP drive - install GUEST.EXE and copy the 95/98 CABS to the laptop drive - slowly!
:D

Thanks for your suggestions. I have an ext. Zip drive but the problem is 1. How do I install guest.exe w/out a floppy drive and 2. the Zip drive plugs into the parallel port and the Toshiba laptop has no parallel port. Maybe I'll learn how to set up the HDD before installing it.

[Mini-Me]

In your case, a ZIP drive won't help much, as you don't even have a floppy drive to load the guest.exe file from.
Not to mention the fact that you don't have a parallel port either!
:eek:
You're snookered!
:p

However, I think that at this stage, the easiest solution is simply to follow Paul's advise: move the laptop HDD to a "Full size" computer, and load the install files onto a small partition on the drive - the partition only needs to be big enough to hold the XP install folder files, as you can partition the rest of the "Unused" space during the XP install...

If that laptop were mine, that's what I would be doing.

I would rather attempt this than try to create a DOS partition on the HDD which is something way out of my league.

Don't be frightened away from partitioning and formatting.
I was too at first, but it is really not that painful, and with the help of Windows XP's disk-manager, you will wonder why you were worried!!!
:)

Goto: CONTROL PANEL/ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS/COMPUTER MANAGEMENT

Click Disk Management in the left pane of the window.

You should see all your drives, and how they are partitoned, and how they are formatted, shown graphically - coulden't be easier.
:)

http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/5379/clipboard9wu.jpg

If you would like to proceed to set up your drive this way, I'm sure everyone here could help you through it step by step.

[Mini-Me]

BTW: What version of Windoze were you planning to install on this laptop?

[Relztrah]

BTW: What version of Windoze were you planning to install on this laptop?

XP Pro and then SP2

[Mini-Me]

Okey dokey.
:cool:

Would you like to have a go at partitioning?

It is quite easy.
I could post photos in this thread at key points, to show you what to do, and what to expect.

To show you, I would setup a new disk in my machine, using Disk Management, partition, format and make bootable the small partition created. You could then copy the XP install files to the partition using Windows Explorer from your CD.

Done!
:)

[Relztrah]

Mini-Me, Paul and anyone else reading this thread,

Well, since you have offered such helpful advice and willingness to walk me through this process, I went ahead and puchased the replacement HDD. It has not arrived yet, but when it does, I'll take you up on your kind offer to post simple step-by-step instructions for partitioning the laptop HDD and copying install files so that it will boot normally. The first thing that I'll need is some kind of adapter gizmo since this small HDD doesn't connect to a normal IDE cable. Is that the "caddy" that Paul mentions? And then I'm assuming that I configure it as a slave drive on my desktop machine. I didn't see the normal jumpers on this little thing, but I'll wait until the new unit arrives.

The other possibility is that I may find that the new HDD already has a bootable partition--I'll test it first--and this procedure won't be necessary. Although I doubt that will be the case, so I'm ready to learn something new.

[Relztrah]

P.S. And I'll be sure to drop another tip in the tip jar when it's done.

[Paul Komski]

You just need an adapter such as
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16812116211
or
http://www.bay-wolf.com/hddadapter.htm

or an adapter in rack drawer for a more permanent arrangement such as
http://www.directron.com/kf25.html

[Mini-Me]

Most latop HDD's do not have master/slave jumpers - they are factory set as master as there is only ever enough room in a laptop for one drive, and one drive only!!!
:D
In laptops with CD-ROM drives, either the drive is factory configured as a slave or it is connected to the secondary IDE port(if the laptop makes use of a 2nd IDE port)

I would suggest you put the laptop drive on the second IDE port in your big machine - disconnect any CD-ROM or other drive you might have there for the moment...

If the new HDD you get is brand new, it will not be bootable.
If the new HDD you get is 2nd hand, it most likely is bootable, as it will still have the previous owners' format and boot-sectors in place...(depending on weather they had Windoze or Linux or some other OS installed on it)

[Paul Komski]

Bootability on hard drives is most simplistically achieved by "sys"ing a FAT partitiion from a dos-based floppy. In other words have the most simple dos installation with just command.com, io.sys and msdos.sys on the drive. This has the benefit of being bootable from a very wide range of different computers.

[Mini-Me]

OK.
To start with, you will need a Windows 95/98 boot-disk, or you can download an .exe which will create a boot disk for you here (http://www.mbhs.edu/~jaosborn/boot98sc.exe)

Create this disk, or loacte an old boot-disk - we will need that later.

You should also copy the entire contents of the i386 folder from your XP CD to some easy to remember location on the main XP boxs' hard-drive - we need to copy them to the laptop drive shortly...

Assuming that you have plugged your laptop drive into IDE channel 2, and booted up your big XP machine, goto Disk Management as shown above.

My drive is a spare 3.2GB one.

First, lets delete any partition that may or may not be there on the drive:
Right-click the drive "Box" and select Delete Partition

http://img350.imageshack.us/img350/8597/hdd22jq.jpg

BE VERY SURE that you are working with your laptop drive.
Do not do anything on DISK 0 - this is the hard-drive that runs the system, and deleting partitions on that drive would be - unfortunate...

You will get a warning asking if you really want to do this - click YES.

OK, now lets create the small partition.
Right click the laptop drives' "Box", and select New Partition

http://img320.imageshack.us/img320/9476/hdd53nm.jpg

Click Next on the new partition wizard screen that pops up.

Check that "Primary Partition" has a radio-dot beside it, then click Next

Specify a partition size - 500MB is enough for the i386 folder on the XP CD, so enter in the figure, then click Next

http://img346.imageshack.us/img346/7149/hdd89rs.jpg

Now, click Next again, on the screen asking about assigning a drive letter - accept the default drive letter - probably D unless you have other drives in your machine...

http://img82.imageshack.us/img82/7259/hdd94in.jpg

Next, select FAT32 as the filesystem...

Click Next, and you will be presented with a summary. Click Finish, and the formatting will begin...

http://img446.imageshack.us/img446/3675/hdd111ly.jpg

Once the format is complete, right click the new formatted partition "Box" and select Mark Partition As Active

http://img446.imageshack.us/img446/6572/hdd125wx.jpg

You're done - well, this part anyway!
;)

Now you can access this small 500MB partition under Windows Explorer.

Copy the entire i386 folder and all it's subdirectories from the main HDD, to the new partition on the laptop drive.

At this point, you need to shut down your computer.

For safety sake, please uplug the big XP box's main hard-drive at this point, so that the only thing plugged in, is the laptop drive on the secondary IDE channel. This step will ensure there is no way you accidentally do something to the normal XP drive.

Insert the bootdisk i mentioned at the beginning of this reply, and restart your machine. The PC should boot to a good old fashioned C:\> prompt, although it will show on the screen as A:\>

Type C: and press ENTER

Type DIR and press ENTER.
You should see the i386 folder listed as being on the drive.

Type A: and press ENTER
Type SYS C: and press ENTER
There should be some disk activity, and after a short delay, you should be rewarded with the message: System transferred.

The disk is now bootable.

To be sure, you can re-boot your machine at this point, but take out the boot-up floppy - the system should boot to the same C:\> prompt - if it does, you're all set; remove the laptop drive, and re-plug the normal XP drive where you unplugged it from.
:)

There are actually quicker ways to do this, but you have to be comfortable in text-only mode(no mouse, no buttons to click), so it is less stressful to setup the partitions, format & copy files within Windoze in your case...

[Relztrah]

The "new" hard drive for this laptop arrived in the mail but it is larger than the defective HDD currently installed. Apparently this model Toshiba takes a very small (merely 2¼ wide and thinner) HDD. The one I purchased to replace it is the standard laptop size. So, I'll have to postpone this procedure--which I am committed to performing--until I can secure the correct size HDD.

Question: since I have a smaller size laptop HDD, will the adapter fit? Is the adapter that Paul provides links to for a standard size laptop HDD and possibly won't work with the size that the Toshiba Portege has?

[Mini-Me]

Most laptop drives are 2.5", although, they might have started making even smaller(physically) ones now...

The older laptops I deal with, all have 2.5" drives in them, but they can be either 12mm or 9mm thick. Both types will fit the standard 2.5" laptop drive adaptor.

In your case, if you are telling me that the drive is less than 2.5" wide, then you will need to check with a laptop shop, if the standard adaptors will fit it.

Generally, when they change the size of something, they tend to make changes to the interface as well!!!
:D

Perhpas Paul or another member could chime in at this point, if there is a different size laptop connector on the newer laptop drives...

I do know that they make drives down to 1" and smaller - I kid you not!
:eek:

[Paul Komski]

The standard is 2.5" IDE but there have been and exist a number of other interfaces including scsi notebook hdds. I have an old AST laptop which has a 1.25" interface on a drive that is 2.75" wide; it has two banks of 25 rather than one bank of 50 connectors and I have yet to come across an adapter for it.

Which model is the Portege 2000 or do you have a more specific id/part number for the HDD?

[Relztrah]

Here's the link to a spec sheet for this HDD (http://sdd.toshiba.com/localcache/820000000a6e000003bf0000000100000000.pdf#search='t oshiba%20HDD1364')

[Paul Komski]

The 2.5" Form Factor is so-called because that is the size of the platters not the width of the drive. 2.5" Form Factor HDDs have a width of 2.75". See http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/form_In25.htm

This has been a useful thread for myself since I now see that my old AST drive actually has a 2.5" form factor (so I should be able to get myself an adapter) with a centronic type interace connected by a small cable onto the 44 to 50 pins sticking out of the HDD itself. (I had never disassembled the outer shell of the laptop case before, which is actually just a rack that sits inside the laptop equivalent to a tray in a desktop).

The configuration is very similar to a desktop 40pin IDE interface except that in addition there are up to six pins for jumpers and four pins for a (5V only) power supply.

It doesn't look as if your drive could work since it uses a 3.3V power supply (pins 41 through 44) and must thus be another form factor. The other concern is that the diagram in your link has 50 holes in it whereas in the pcguide page and on my own laptop hdd there are pins and not holes.

Also a number of the pins have different i/o on the normal ide interface than with your specifcations; notably most of the odd numbers from 25 onwards. Compare with http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_IDE.html

It looks likely that you have the 1.8" form factor for which see http://sdd.toshiba.com/main.aspx?Path=/8182000000070000000100006598000026b9/818200000b0c000000010000659c000026bd

Perhaps you can get an adapter or not. Toshiba themselves or some Toshiba newsgroup might give you the answer.

[Paul Komski]

I think I found the right one at http://www.addonics.com/products/io/aaedt18IDE25.asp but use at your own risk of course.

I particularly noted:
Built-in on board regulator to provide regulated 3.3V output

[Relztrah]

This would essentially require two adapters, correct? One from my 1.8" HDD to 2.5" and another from 2.5" to 3.5 IDE. I'm wondering if there is such a thing as an adapter that can plug directly into my smaller 1.8" HDD to a standard IDE cable to install on a desktop. I found a vendor on eBay (adapterz) that has quite a bit of this type of merchandise, so I'll e-mail him to see if he sells such an item. Of course I don't yet have the hard drive, so I'm trusting that I can find a used one somewhere.

Thank you again for going the extra mile for me on this.

Relztrah

[Paul Komski]

Yep. The last link I posted shows two adapters in series. Its not clear whether they both come as a kit or whether you need to get both of them separately.