| Author |
Laptop problem ... ideas?
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| A friend has one of these in his workshop and is having a problem with
reinstalling an OS for his customer.
Apparently the customer had a problem and created a new partition - moved
the OS there and then formatted the C: partition. The problem no is that we
are unable to install anything and can not get the CD-ROM drive to be
recognised (even after installing card services). We also tried a USB
CD-ROM and the Portege recognises it and loads drivers, but you can not read
files on it.
Any ideas? | |
| Tarzanboy 2003-07-25, 2:05 am |
| Couldn't you boot the computer with a boot disk and move the OS back to C:? At the outside, what happens if you try blowing out the contents of the drive, then try reinstalling over the network?
Cheers,
TB | |
| Delphis 2003-07-25, 2:10 am |
| Ok so you don't have an OS on there right now, and you can't get access to the CD drive to load one?
Ok if you can't find a dos driver for the CD-Rom to load an OS that way, and the BIOS doesn't support booting from the CD you could always try removing the drive from the laptop and pluging it into your desktop system (Yes this will require a little 5-10 doller adapter). Once you have it as a slave on the desktop system you can format it and copy the flat file to the HD and load it that way. If you can't even get a dos boot disk to load up (IE you don't even have access to boot a floppy) just make sure you copy the system files over to boot into dos before you reinstall it in the Laptop. Place the HD back in the Laptop, boot up, run the OS installation program. From there you should be able to find drivers for what ever OS was originally on the system, and most likely drivers for most any OS in general. | |
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| Ahhh if it were so easy. 
This thing has external USB floppy ans PCMCIA CD-ROM.
We have tried booting from floppy and installing card services, but will not recognise the CD-ROM.
Have tried and external USB CD-ROM. It sees the drive but will not read it (tried a different CD-ROM and a different USB cradle.
Can't swap the HD and read it from another laptop or desktop system as the HD is not the standard size but one of those cute little 2" jobs and we have been unable to locate an adapter anywhere.
This belongs to a visiting student and we are trying to keep costs to a minimum so importing an adapter is kind of out of the price range. | |
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| Tarzanboy - We are considering building a W2K server with DCHP to try to install over the network.
The problem there is that this small service business doesn't run a server and just uses a workgroup for their meagre needs. No big deal to build a server OS on a removeable drive and just connect it with a crossover, but if I can find another way that is quicker I would like to try that.
Especially if we can document it in case this problem pops up again. | |
| Delphis 2003-07-25, 2:30 am |
| Ok it can boot from a USB floppy, is there any way you can get access to a USB CD-Rom drive? Or if you can find a USB Harddrive you may be able to take it apart and plug a CD drive into that just long enough to load the OS. Or some USB Harddrives are actually the 2.5 inch Laptop hard drives and you can just swap it to connect to another computer and do what I said earlier.
If none of those are options your only other choice is to find a PCMCIA driver that will work. | |
| enforcer 2003-07-25, 6:07 am |
| Can you not get a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE adapter (they cost about £5 here) and then slave the drive in a normal PC, copy the i386 directory to the C: drive and run install from there after booting from the floppy. | |
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| Delphis - It sees a USB CD-ROM, but will not let us access it. Like I posted - I tried 2 different enclosures and 2 different CD-ROM drives. It won't recognise a hard drive at all.
Enforcer - nope, it is not 2 1/2" it is maybe 2" - the drive is about credit card size and about the thickness of a couple floppys. Much smaller than a regular laptop drive. I do have a special cradle for laptop drives in a removeable drive bay already and that was one of my first thoughts.
I did get an email just now telling me that a known problem with PCMCIA CD-ROMS is that more often than not they have to have the manufacturers drivers and not generic card services. I guess when I find out what brand it is tomorrow I can troll the makers drivers up somewhere. | |
| MistyRing 2003-07-25, 8:23 am |
| quote:
We are considering building a W2K server with DCHP to try to install over the network.
The problem there is that this small service business doesn't run a server and just uses a workgroup for their meagre needs.
No need to build a server. Just share a CD on a workgroup PC and use a network boot disk to install over the LAN. I'll even point you to a downloadable boot disk! All you have to do is stick in the IP Address (or use netbeui) and the workgroup name. Easy!
http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/network/ (has drivers for most nics) | |
| nsansari 2003-07-25, 5:26 pm |
| quote:
Originally posted by RussS
A friend has one of these in his workshop and is having a problem with
reinstalling an OS for his customer.
Apparently the customer had a problem and created a new partition - moved
the OS there and then formatted the C: partition. The problem no is that we
are unable to install anything and can not get the CD-ROM drive to be
recognised (even after installing card services). We also tried a USB
CD-ROM and the Portege recognises it and loads drivers, but you can not read
files on it.
Any ideas?
Another easy way is using a laplink cable, it is usually very slow, but once you have it connected u can copy the whole OS installation folder to the hard drive then run the setup from there.
I have used used a dos based software very frequently to do installation on old laptops without cdroms. It is called NC , Norton Commander Ver 5. You can search the internet and download it for free.
You boot the laptop with a floppy. Then run the program NC (it can fit on a floppy) also run a copy of the software on a desktop computer from where u want to copy the OS installation folder. In the menus somewhere u'll find a LINK option just use that and the rest is almost self explanatory.
It does work, and is quite easy. You just need a laplink cable and download the software.
Hope this helps | |
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| Cheers MistyRing
I did think of that last night and made a peer to peer boot floppy with Ghost 03, but I will make one from your recommended site and take it with me this morning.
nsansari - we tried that yesterday with a couple different setups to no avail. I think it could be a security setting on the Portege somehow - much like seeeing the connected CR-ROM but not allowing it to be read. | |
| Kasor 2003-07-25, 10:17 pm |
| PC card CD-ROM will not boot the notebook. It required setting on the .bat and .sys files, and system files.
Since, CD-ROM don't read.
MUST try the floppy, using any win98 boot disk to boot the notebook and shall able to detect the CD-ROM, then used fdisk and scandisk to make sure your HD is working. | |
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| Kasor - that is all easy stuff that any tech should know dood. The problem this guy has is a lot more difficult.
FD = USB - can be booted from
CD-ROM = PCMCIA - can not be booted from and even though this gets issued a drive letter we can not read from it.
USB CD-ROM could be used but only if DOS drivers can be located. Sofar I have located some Panasonic ones that I am told will fire up most USB devices. I just now have to build a boot disk to do this. | |
| rnrkenzie 2003-07-26, 9:04 am |
| quote:
Originally posted by RussS
Tarzanboy - We are considering building a W2K server with DCHP to try to install over the network.
The problem there is that this small service business doesn't run a server and just uses a workgroup for their meagre needs. No big deal to build a server OS on a removeable drive and just connect it with a crossover, but if I can find another way that is quicker I would like to try that.
Especially if we can document it in case this problem pops up again.
If you are just looking for something to hold some files on with a bit of security, and are not to worried about the access security benefits which come with a Domain Controller, etc. then a normal desktop with a sizable hard drive running Windows 2000 Workstation would perform the same tasks. Unless the is a real need to have a server, save the money on licences and just opt for a workstation with a NTFS file system.
Is the any other reason for the Server then just to host some files with a DCHP bolted on? | |
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| rnrkenzie - that about sums it up. Just need a file server with DHCP.
I have however spent a few hours last night building my own boot disks and have 2 of them with USB support. I'll run them down to my buddie tomorrow and see if they do the job. If no luck there I guess the quickest thing for me to do is take my lab machine down there with one of the server drives installed. | |
| Kasor 2003-07-26, 10:02 pm |
| Let us know how it go.
Very interesting issue here, did you figure why this happen? |
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