Re-installing Windows without a CD Drive...

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Hey guys, here's a conundrum...

My DVD drive died on me like a couple of weeks ago. It was performing erratically all these days, and finally it has croaked completely. Anyways, I was thinking of formatting my computer and re-installing Windows because I am having a LOT of software problems and what not.

I've done this before 3-4 times, so I know what I'm doing...but it just occurred to me that I don't have a functional DVD drive in my laptop!!

I do have my Windows CD and Driver installation CD and all that other stuff. Does anyone know of anyway to work around this WITHOUT getting a replacement CD/DVD drive? I have a feeling that I will have to resort to that only, but I thought this was an interesting problem and all you gurus here on the boards might like to see if you could figure something out??

 

Modern PCs and laptops can recognise USB-connected drives during startup and boot from there.

If you have a pen drive, attach it to the computer and restart. Press whatever key your computer uses to allow you to choose the boot drive, and see if the USB is listed as a bootable resource. If it is, you could copy the XP CD there and do your magic.

EDIT: Actually, ignore my post. It seems you can't install XP from a USB device because USB ports are re-initialised during installation.

[ September 12, 2006, 16:32: Message edited by: Colthrun ]

 

Install Debian/Ubuntu etc from an USB drive (or floppies - you'll just have to start a network install), then install Windows via a WM - for example, WMWare.

It has the advantages of Windows in a virtual machine (safer), but it's considerably slower.

 

Wow...that's really roundabout...and Taza, wouldn't that essentially be a Linux install with Windows running on it??

So there is no way to create a bootable/installable USB drive ?? Like my 30 GB iPod for instance?

 

It is just one disk driver (just C)? If you have partitions, you could copy the CD in one partition and launch DOS mode (F8 key) when starting Windows. Is a lot of work, I've done this before like this: copy the CD (in another computer)to a hard disk, used my Zen Micro as a HD and brought to the laptop on D, started DOS mode and from there installed from D(don't format before or it won't boot, when installing it will format).
Hope it helps.

 

@Faraaz: Yes, it would be a Linux install with Windows running on it in a virtual machine. This is also much more secure than just Windows, but Linux's user-friendliness is well-known. Debian would be the best for such light system, but Ubuntu's considerably easier to use if you also want to use Linux for other purposes.

There is also a method to copy the required install files to some other partition and install that way, and possibly a network install option. I don't know the details though, I've always had a CD drive to throw in.

Of course, the easiest solution is just to get an external CD-rom drive.

 

@Taza & Sydax: Thanks for the input guys.

Yeah, I know I'll be best off just getting an external CD-Rom drive...but yeah, as I mentioned earlier, this was a bit of an academic exercise to tell you the truth...