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 Post subject: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 5:36 pm 
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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.


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 5:38 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 5:45 pm 
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Not a clue.....hope that helps


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 6:52 pm 
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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 ?


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 7:00 pm 
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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!!


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 7:04 pm 
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Buy a new DVD drive? Full size one should be under £20, lappy one about £30.

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 7:08 pm 
Mr Irrelevant wrote:
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.


You lost me at LAST sctatchinghead sctatchinghead sctatchinghead sctatchinghead sctatchinghead


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 7:23 pm 
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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.

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:08 pm 
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Is it switched on?

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:09 pm 
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Try turning it off and back on again


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 8:13 pm 
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Grave wrote:
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.



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


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 9:24 pm 
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Would a SATA --> USB cable be any use ?


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 10:04 pm 
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Mr Irrelevant wrote:
Grave wrote:
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.



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


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.

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:14 pm 
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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 !!!!


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:21 pm 
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was just going to say have you tried
www.currys.co.uk

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 11:52 pm 
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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 12:12 am 
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Mr Irrelevant wrote:
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 !!!!


Thats one way of doing it I suppose :wink:

ps, clappp

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 8:05 am 
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Bloody hell - a right fook on !
Have you considered doing it for a living ?


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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 9:18 am 
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Mr Irrelevant wrote:
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 !!!!


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

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 Post subject: Re: Technical - Any idea?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 05, 2011 11:52 am 
and he reckons he's good at compoota's too...


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