XP install woes in an old Toshiba tablet notebook

[Trapper]

Hi Folks,

I've got a problem with an old Toshiba tablet notebook.

For one reason or another, against better advice (isn't it always the way!) I wiped this notebook as the OS had become so cluttered it was beyond any reasonable repairs.

This was managed by sticking the XP disc in and taking it from there. XP installed and then promptly blue screened, and hasn't worked since.

This notebook has no internal CD ROM, and is so old refuses to acknowledge a non-Toshiba USB CD ROM drive, so a simple OS install from scratch is out of the question.

I've tried moving the HDD into another notebook, formatting and letting the XP installation files copy to the HDD, then turning it off and putting it back into the tablet before it reaches the GUI stage. This always causes a BSoD.

I've tried copying the XP CD to the HDD and running setup from DOS, which failed.

I've made the four XP boot floppies, as the tablet will boot off a Toshiba branded USB FDD, however it always crashed on Disc 3. Regardless of how many times I've remade the floppies, so I've discounted a bad set of discs.

The only other thing I can think of trying is WDS, however we use Ghost and have no deployment server setup. Obviously this is something I'd like to try, but I haven't got time at the moment to play with it.

Can anyone think of something else to try in case I've missed something blindingly obvious?!

Cheers

[FN-GM]

I've tried moving the HDD into another notebook, formatting and letting the XP installation files copy to the HDD, then turning it off and putting it back into the tablet before it reaches the GUI stage. This always causes a BSoD.

Before you move it back over to the other laptop sysprep it. That should stop the BSOD.

Another option would be to use official Windows 2000 installation floppies and stick with that. If you don't want to stick with 2000 try an upgrade install with a usb cd rom

[Trapper]

Thanks, I'll give this a go on Monday.

[mac_shinobi]

any options in the bios of the laptop / tablet to enable usb for external cd rom drives or devices ?

Also I know you mentioned WDS but for the sake of one laptop could you not setup RIS on another machine ( windows 2003 ) even if its the trail version of server 2003 on its own mini switch so it does not interfere with your own network and use RIS if the network card on the laptop supports pxe ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Vt_8p0VllY&feature=user

Thats for an acer laptop so it may vary some what. However there are plenty of guides on internet if you google it as per the above youtube video its not a one for all and that should give you a rough idea of how to use a usb memory stick to do it.

Depends on how you want to install it.

[Trapper]

Thanks for the tips folks.

The tablet is now working once again!

In the end I used RIS, after some hacking to get the right NIC drivers, it worked a treat.