Need help installing Windows XP & a laptop ATA hardrive

[ReLiK_7]

Hey Guys.

Probably a stupid or nub question.

But I was wondering if the hardrive in a tablet is the same size as a hardrive in a laptop?

As Im trying to re-image a laptop that I bought and put windows XP on it, but it doesnt have a CD drive and I tried hooking up and External drive to it but it doesnt recognise it in vista and there is no drivers for it!
So Im a bit lost as to how to re-image it!
Anyone got any ideas?


So was going to try and swap the hardrives and then I have one ATA and one SATA.
So if no one has any ideas for above can anyone provide me a laptop ATA hardrive with Windows XP already installed or even better Windows XP tablet.

Thanks

[sanjay]

what tablet is it?

most tablets im aware of will let you boot off a USB optical drive, just gotta set it up in the bios and/or press F12/F11/something to get a boot menu on startup

[ReLiK_7]

The tablet is a HP tc4200.
And I have no options to boot off another device in Windows Vista I only have memory diagnostics

[sanjay]

booting from a CD has got nothing to do with vista...and yes, im fairly sure that model will boot off a USB CD drive - its predecessor certainly did..

[ReLiK_7]

Yes but the driver for the USB cd rom wont be recognised in vista, unless you know anywhere I can find a driver for it

[sanjay]

Originally Posted by ReLiK_7

Yes but the driver for the USB cd rom wont be recognised in vista, unless you know anywhere I can find a driver for it

it doesnt need to be recognised in vista...booting from USB is a bios thing...

and at any rate a CD drive should be recognised as a P&P device in vista anyway - if it isnt, its probably some non-standard iomega POS that needs to be replaced

[ReLiK_7]

The vista bios has no options to boot from cd though as I was telling you.
So I cant and it is recognised in vista but no vista driver for it

[sanjay]

i dont mean to be facetious but do you know what the BIOS is?

its got nothing to do with what operating system you are running.

as for getting the drive recognised while in vista - connect to the net, plug the drive in, connect to windows update to get the correct drivers, couldnt be much simpler (of course itd be simpler if it just worked out of the box )

[ReLiK_7]

Yes now the bios came u this time didnt last time for some reason

Do you know what files I need to put on my usb hardrive to boot of it?

[sanjay]

hmm, thats a tough one

ive only ever booted off external hard disks with ghosted installations of windows on them, sorry dude

[ReLiK_7]

Do you have a 60gb ata hardrive then with windows xp on it?
Will swap with this perfectly good one, just dont want vista on it and I cant get xp on it without my cd drive working.

[sanjay]

Originally Posted by ReLiK_7

Do you have a 60gb ata hardrive then with windows xp on it?
Will swap with this perfectly good one, just dont want vista on it and I cant get xp on it without my cd drive working.

its not that simple - a hard disk with a copy of XP cloned from, say, a dell latitude D400 aint gonna work with a HP TC4200, you need a cloned install from another TC4200.

[ReLiK_7]

Yea I just want it so I can use it and then boot off it and it will recognise my external CD drive, I dont care if doesnt pick up all the drivers and stuff.
And I will install Windows XP Tablet later.

OR you think that wont work either?

[sanjay]

it wont boot. you'll get a bluescreen.

the only OSes that'll readily boot from an external drive no matter what its plugged into is a number of variants of linux and mac OS.

[SLATYE]

Originally Posted by sanjayschrapel

the only OSes that'll readily boot from an external drive no matter what its plugged into is a number of variants of linux and mac OS.

And Windows 3.1!

Originally Posted by ReLiK_7

But I was wondering if the hardrive in a tablet is the same size as a hardrive in a laptop?

That tablet does seem to use a standard 2.5" (laptop size) HDD.

Just get a cheap USB laptop HDD enclosure (they're under $10 on StaticICE). Plug the HDD into that, and the connect it to your main PC. Format the tablet's HDD and copy the required files onto it (boot files and the contents of the Windows XP CD would be a good idea).