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resinstalling XP without a CD/DVD drive

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by buscuit, Sep 23, 2007.

  1. buscuit

    buscuit Regular member

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    I have a DELL Latitude X1 laptop. It has no internal CD/DVD drive in it. How would I reinstall XP on this machine? I thought maybe an external CD/DVD drive, but during the start up, I can access the boot menu (F12) and it only gives the following options to boot from:

    • Internal Hard drive
    • NIC

    There is no option to boot from a CD/DVD drive. This DELL doesn't have the special partition with the "restore" option either (CTRL + F11). Any suggestions on how a fresh install of XP can be applied to this laptop?
     
  2. ianski7

    ianski7 Guest

    Hey, there is no option for cd boot because the bios cant see one. If you plug one in you will most likely see the boot option. There may be a bios setting to enable boot from usb.

    If that doesn't work you can remove the hard drive and install in a system with similar motherboard specs. Install standard XP and standard drivers only. Go to device manager>ide/ata/atapi controllers> update all to standard drivers. Install in the dell and you will have a 50%-75% chance it will boot......install proper drivers.
     
  3. Auslander

    Auslander Senior member

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    or fire up XP on the computer and select to do a full install. when the laptop reboots, it will go straight to the disc.
     
  4. buscuit

    buscuit Regular member

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    Actually, an external USB CD-Rom drive seemed to be able to do the trick.

    I had an external IDE/USB conversion kit. I had used it with hard drives, but never with a CD-Rom. I tried it here and when I connected it, it showed up in the boot menu (F12) as stated. I tried it out with an XP disc and it went through the whole initialization process of loading XP so I guess I will be able to do it this way.

    I suspect since this laptop didn't come with a CD-Rom drive initially installed internally, it was designed to accept external ones.
     

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