i've been given a laptop to fix its an Acer with no cd drive it has windows on it but has fooked up and needs windows xp reinstalled, does anyone know how i can do this. i have xp on cd

buy an external cd drive???

You can copy CD contents to a USB stick (3GB+) , and boot it form there. But I had a lotof trouble with that method.

 

or you can get USB CD drives from about £20 off ebay

Depending on how old the laptop is the above methods will work. However older stuff wont understand external CD-Roms outside of windows or will they be able to boot from a USB memory stick. However, these earlier laptops without CD-Roms built in often had their own propreitry optical drives that could be plugged in so Id ask the owner if they still have that.

 

The other and more risky/fidly alternative is that if you find a laptop/computer with the same basic hardware as the laptop your trying to reinstall for (basically same chipset/mainboard as the acer) swap the hard disks over and install windows onto that and there is a good chance that it will work once you swap the hard disks back over. I've had to resort to that in the past but its not always sucessful and should be used as a last ditch attempt!

its a brand new cheapy acer, pc world have said they want £125 to fix it

I had to reinstall XP Pro on an Acer laptop i use for work, normal genuine xp pro disc wouldnt install, it would go so far then blue screen, I had to use boot discs that I didnt have, but I was sent 2, I dont know if they will copy so I could send you a copy.

 

With the boot discs it installed no problem.

 

As for no cd an external cd drive would prob be easier.

 

Let me know and I can try and copy the discs.

 

Cheers John

if using a usb boot stick do i just copy and paste my windows xp cd onto the usb stick

I dont think its quite as simple as that, there is a site called the elder geek which will have a guide on how to do this I expect. You will have to extract the bootable part from the CD and write it to the pendrive to make it something that the computer understands at such a low level. I'll have a google...

 

Bingo here we go

 

http://www.liliputing.com/2008/04/install-windows-xp-on-mini-note-usb.html

top man:dance: thanks:duffer:

i have the laptop and tried to install windows from the usb but as soon as it says starting windows (to install on blue screen) i get the blue screen of death i have tried all sorts and nothing i think it has a virus i have tried to find info to format it but everyone says use the windows disk but i cant get that far HELP!!!!

i have the laptop and tried to install windows from the usb but as soon as it says starting windows (to install on blue screen) i get the blue screen of death i have tried all sorts and nothing i think it has a virus i have tried to find info to format it but everyone says use the windows disk but i cant get that far HELP!!!!

 

Try removing the HDD and cleaning the contacts a bit. Failing that you may need a new HDD if you are getting the BSOD all the time. Have you considered trying to install Linux?

Have you considered trying to install Linux?

 

no i haven't. there seems to be like 7 or 8 partitions and i cant seem to delete them, i have looked to get a format disk for usb but cant find anything or a recovery disk

on an acer you should be able to press ALT F10 on startup to start the inbuilt recovery procedure.

I said the same thing happened with mine when I tried to use a genuine windows xp disc, it sent so far then blue screened, I eventually got the 2 boot discs, one with xp, the other has some drivers I think and it installed fine.

 

Do you have an external cd writer you can plug into the laptop, I will if you want try and copy the 2 discs I have and can send them to you, these are genuine acer boot discs with xp pro.

 

If you want pm me your address and I will try and copy the discs.

 

Cheers John

i have tried the F10 recovery it starts to recover then fails, i need some sort of disk that well format everything straight away so i can then put windows on after.

 

I said the same thing happened with mine when I tried to use a genuine windows xp disc, it sent so far then blue screened, I eventually got the 2 boot discs, one with xp, the other has some drivers I think and it installed fine.

 

Do you have an external cd writer you can plug into the laptop, I will if you want try and copy the 2 discs I have and can send them to you, these are genuine acer boot discs with xp pro.

 

If you want pm me your address and I will try and copy the discs.

 

Cheers John

 

that would be great im out of ideas:thumbdown:

I am just going out to work but when I get back i'll try and copy the 2 discs I have and give you a shout back.

 

Cheers John

thanks for all guys big thanks to John for the disks. anyway all done now but not sure what was wrong still, anyway a mate brought another hard drive that works. so again i try to install xp and it loads the kerrnal files, then says starting windows and i get the BSOD again, so i took the old HD and put it in my tower to try and do it that way and it did. i dont have a clue why it wouldn't do this on the acer with either drive but the laptop is running fine now

Typical computers m8, they can be a nightmare.

 

As long as its sorted thats cool.

 

Cheers John