Last night I tried to restore factory settings on a Dell Hybrid desktop but the formatting failed half way through. No problem you might think, just use the restore DVD's. Trouble is that the DVD drive has packed up on it.

So here we are with a pc with an unformatted drive and a hidden partition complete with restore files. I also have the recovery CD's which I can't use obviously.

Boot from USB I thought. So I created a USB boot disk on USB but no, There is no boot from USB option in the bios.

Getting slightly pissed off I removed the hard drive, a 2.5'' sata drive. I put it on a caddy and formatted the drive. I then copied the xp system files and put it back in the pc.

No good, still getting a fail on boot up.

I don't have an external DVD drive but even if I did it wouldn't work because USB boot is disabled. I don't even have a dos prompt because there is no system files on the hard drive.

I've checked the hard drive and its in good working order.

Parmo will have a solution I'm sure.

Have you tried pouring Coca Cola on it?

Not a clue.....hope that helps

Probably teaching my granny to suck eggs - but have you got a good disk to boot from as a master, then plug in your dodgy disk as a slave ?

Good idea, but theres only one slot, its a hybrid desktop which is really the workings of a laptop in a small desktop case.

I'm currently installing windows XP onto an old laptop then I will be able to use the format /s option. That will give me a dos prompt and hopefully I can go from there. I might have to install XP first though (16 bit works from dos) then upgrade windows from there.

What a piss on!!

Buy a new DVD drive? Full size one should be under £20, lappy one about £30.

lend the hard drive to someone else with a pc and let them connect it up as an additional hard drive (providing their pc has more than one hard drive slot) and format it for you (as long as their dvd drive works too).

Once it has xp on it then you can pop it back in your pc and it SHOULD run but will probably tell you that a lot of your hardware has changed since the last boot and ask if you are happy to continue.

Is it switched on?

Try turning it off and back on again

how would you make that drive bootable on a different pc? The boot manager will think its a slave drive.

Would a SATA --> USB cable be any use ?

valid point but they could simply remove their hard drive and plug yours in instead and reinstall xp onto it for you presuming they have a working dvd drive. they would just need to install xp via bios straight from the disk as opposed to via windows itself.

Here's what I did....

Removed DVD drive and binned it after ripping it apart and trying to get it working. (has anyone ever fixed an optical drive?)

Removed hard drive and put it into a sata/usb caddy.

Formatted the hard drive as FAT32

Copied Win XP files across after extracting them with winiso.

Swapped hard drives and updated bios to accept a USB boot disk

replaced original hard drive

booted from the USB stick

[in dos] browsed to i386 directory and ran the winnt.exe command. Couldn't run setup as it isn't a dos program.

Installed Windows XP

started XP and then ran the recovery program in the hidden partition.

Happy days!

But what a fook on !!!!

was just going to say have you tried
www.currys.co.uk

.....These guys want to know if your doing anything Friday...

Thats one way of doing it I suppose

ps,

Bloody hell - a right fook on !
Have you considered doing it for a living ?

A fook on, agreed, but its what I told you to do three days ago.

and he reckons he's good at compoota's too...