Is this the end of my Toshiba Portege 2000?

[Relztrah]

This has been a faithful old laptop and I love the lightweight model. But when I fired it up tonight instead of booting to Windows XP like it has for years, I got the following message:

PXE-E61: Media Test failure, check cable
PXE-MOF: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
Insert system disk in drive
Press any key when ready

This model has no floppy or CD drive although I have a USB-powered floppy drive. I could boot to an A:> prompt with a Windows 98 boot floppy but I got the message that no FAT or FAT32 partition was found.

I didn't install any new software or do anything else out of normal use last time I used it. Nor did I drop it or cause any physical damage.

Without a CD drive there's no way to reinstall Windows that I'm aware of. I'll just let the battery deplete over night and hope that somebody out there has a recommendation. Perform extreme unction, perhaps.

[Paul Komski]

Without a CD drive there's no way to reinstall Windows that I'm aware of.
It sounds as if the hard drive has gone awol - does it appear in the BIOS setup?

If its OK then you can remove the 2.5" drive (or is it an even smaller drive on the toshiba) (otherwise use a replacement) and attach it to another PC with an IDE to 2.5" adapter or a USB to 2.5" enclosure or adapter and copy the i386 folder to a FAT partition. Put it back in the laptop and run i385\winnt from an msdos boot floppy diskette.

Installing WindowsXP from the Hard Drive (http://www.iol.ie/~krakowangus/winnt.htm)

[Relztrah]

...and copy the i386 folder to a FAT partition.

Assuming I'm able to do this, do I have to make a partition or can I simply copy the folder to the laptop HDD? I don't believe the laptop HDD is partitioned.

[Paul Komski]

The reason for the FAT partition is so that you can access it from a DOS boot floppy. BiNG (in my sig) can partition the drive however you want it partitioned. There's nothing to stop you having one large FAT primary partition and installing into it. Alternatively have a partition just for the installation files and the eventual boot files and install the main windows boot partition into the remaining space on the drive during setup. You can copy the folder to the laptop HDD's partition but you would want to format it or delete all the files on it first to not waste space.

[Relztrah]

This model has a miniaturized 1.8" HDD only 8mm thick. I found an IDE cable adapter on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300104264261&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fse arch.dll%3Ffrom%3DR40%26satitle%3D300104264261%26c ategory0%3D%26fvi%3D1) that should allow me to connect it to the secondary IDE cable on my desktop and then perform the above procedure. I'll attempt to do so and report back.

Thanks,
Relztrah

[Erik]

This model has a miniaturized 1.8" HDD only 8mm thick. I found an IDE cable adapter on eBay (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300104264261&ru=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ebay.com%3A80%2Fsearch%2Fse arch.dll%3Ffrom%3DR40%26satitle%3D300104264261%26c ategory0%3D%26fvi%3D1) that should allow me to connect it to the secondary IDE cable on my desktop and then perform the above procedure. I'll attempt to do so and report back.

Thanks,
Relztrah

Is the drive even still good though? You should be able to get a bootable floppy to run drive diagnostics on it. Just look at the HD manufacturers website. If it tests good then doing a fresh install shouldn't be an issue. If not you will need a replacement drive.

[Paul Komski]

If it tests good then doing a fresh install shouldn't be an issue.The problem was to get at the installation files when there was no CD available and installing direct to the hard drive (original or replacement) is usually much less complicated than trying a network install.

We don't of course know whether the drive was seen in the BIOS setup, which is usually a necessary precursor to run floppy diskette diagnostics on the drive.

[Relztrah]

The BIOS doesn't allow me to get any information about the HDD on this machine so I put my boot floppy in the USB floppy drive and rebooted. I got the normal Windows 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition...blah, blah, blah. I tried to run fdisk and got the message Error reading fixed disk so obviously the HDD is toast. I will look around on the internet for a replacement HDD that will fit, then attempt to install Windows in it from my desktop computer using the adapter gizmo and following the above procedure.

Thanks for your help.

Relztrah

[Relztrah]

I am reviving this thread because I recently purchased and received a replacement HDD for this laptop. From the above posts I'll remind anybody willing to help me that this machine does not have a CD drive so I'll have to copy all installation files from my desktop machine using my adapter and connecting it to the secondary IDE cable. This part I'm confident I can handle.

I will attempt to partition the new HDD usng BiNG although I'm unfamiliar with partitioning with BiNG or otherwise. How large should I make the partition? Will this become the primary DOS partition? The remaining space on the HDD will then be the extended partition, correct? Or can I simply leave it unpartitioned? Is there any advantage in making it a NTFS partition and can I have both FAT and NTFS on the same HDD? (I'm not sure BiNG even allows this.)

Assuming I reach this point, I'll copy the i386 folder to my primary partition and run i385\winnt from a DOS prompt using my boot floppy.

I've never attempted anything like this, but then that's how all of us learn, right? Thanks for any help other members can offer. I'll report back after phase 1.

Appreciatively,
Relztrah

[Paul Komski]

run i385\winnt
i386 usually

Suggest that you could start off with a 10-20GB primary FAT partition. You can always resize it afterwards and it is easy at any later stage to convert from FAT to NTFS but not so easy to go in reverse. Leave the remainder of the harddrive unallocated till you decide what you want to do with it.

You can mix any combination of different formatted partitions on one hard drive - including FAT and NTFS and all the Linux partition types etc etc.

[Erik]

Yep, just copy the files, and run the i386\winnt installer. You can then setup the unallocated space as a large NTFS partition, or make smaller partitions, or whatver wors for you. I would even consider leaving the small FAT partition for the CD install files in case you ever want to reinstall again. Maybe even copy all of the other CDs over there too (if you need any).

[Relztrah]

The new HDD is only 5 GB to begin with, so I successfully (I believe) partioned 1 GB as FAT32 and copied the i386 folder to it. I left the rest of the HDD unpartitioned.

When I boot with a floppy I get to an A:> prompt but don't know where to go from that point.

[Relztrah]

Yes, I did first install the HDD in my laptop.

[Paul Komski]

Run

smartdrv

first from the A: prompt and then

C:\i386\winnt

should start the install

or in sequence

C:
cd i386
winnt

and you can of course use

C:
dir

to check what got copied to C and that you can access the hard drive OK

[Relztrah]

smartdrv gives me Bad command or file name regardless of the boot disk I use, Win98 or XP.

C is my RAMdrive so I can see the contents of my RAMdrive. But this is not what's on my HDD.

Also, for what it's worth, when I boot with the Win98 boot floppy, I continue to get the message:

WINDOWS 98 has detected that drive C does not contain a valid FAT or FAT32 partition. There are several possible causes: blah, blah, blah...

Hmmm. Does that mean that I in fact did not successfully partition the HDD using BiNG?

Thanks again for your help.

[Paul Komski]

Does that mean that I in fact did not successfully partition the HDD using BiNG?

It's possible but if BiNG appeared to partition it OK it looks as if the hard drive is not currently detected at all back in the laptop. You should be able to detect it in the BIOS - can you get into the BIOS at all? Generally speaking until a drive is recognised in the BIOS setup one is going nowhere fast.

Smartdrv as a bad command usually means it isnt on the floppy or whichever prompt you are at when you issue the command - but its an irrelevance if you cant see the hard drive and if C is the RAMdrive then no partitons are visible on the hard drive.

[Relztrah]

This laptop has a very strange BIOS that doesn't show drives. So from the BIOS I can't tell much of anything.

I was just wondering if I could remove the HDD from the laptop, reconnect it to my desktop machine, but to the primary IDE cable, boot with my Windows CD in the drive, format and install Windows XP on it as the C drive of my desktop, then remove and re-insert it into my laptop and let Windows detect all new settings and hardware on my laptop . Would this work?

[Paul Komski]

This laptop has a very strange BIOS that doesn't show drives.
I'm guessing it doesnt show either of your drives and that you cant see either of the drives from a Win98 floppy because the host controller is bad or disabled in the BIOS somewhere or because the cabling from mobo to HDD is deficient is some way.

I think you can try anything but that nothing will work till a drive is recognised somewhere in the BIOS.