Dumb question I should know the answer to but...

[lokiju]

I have a older laptop thats BIOS doesn't support booting from anything but a USB floppy drive (which I don't have) or a proprietary CD ROM that connects via the PCMCIA slot (which I also don't have).

I'm trying to get Windows installed on it since currently it's just a paper weight since theres no OS running.

I'm wondering if it'd be possible at all to take the Hard Drive, put it into another totally different laptop, install Windows, run Sysprep, swap the drive back into the laptop I'm trying to get up and running and let it redetect the hardware and work?

Is it possible? I'm thinking no, but don't know for sure.

 

[TG2]

Ive done that before, what chipsets/cpu/memory type are we talking about?

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: TG2
Ive done that before, what chipsets/cpu/memory type are we talking about?

Nothing is the same.

Different chipset, different memory type, different processor all together also.

 

[TG2]

guess it cant hurt to try, right?

 

[cubby1223]

I'd almost guarantee that sysprep will do nothing useful for you. You would have to do a repair install, which would require booting to the XP cd.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: lokiju

Originally posted by: TG2
Ive done that before, what chipsets/cpu/memory type are we talking about?

Nothing is the same.

Different chipset, different memory type, different processor all together also.

If you try that method I sense a BSOD in your future...

 

[lokiju]

Originally posted by: Robor

Originally posted by: lokiju

Originally posted by: TG2
Ive done that before, what chipsets/cpu/memory type are we talking about?

Nothing is the same.

Different chipset, different memory type, different processor all together also.

If you try that method I sense a BSOD in your future...

Didn't work, get NTDLR errors with whatever I do, as soon as it does the "copying files" and reboots to start the install I get the error.

Damn, it's a Fujitsu Lifebook P1120, been reading and seems I need to either get a USB thumb/pen drive that truly supports floppy emulation or a USB floppy drive (which are kind of pricey IMO)

 

[lxskllr]

I'm in a hurry so to save time here's a cut/paste from another forum, both from me changing from socket 478 to Conroe:
Problem
I just got this mb 2 days ago, and the install went flawlessly. I booted up repaired my XP installation, then updated Windows. I benched my system with good results, played around a little bit, then shut it down for the night. After work I turned the computer on, and after post my video went black and Windows wouldn't load. Thinking my OS went bad?!?! I tried to do another repair installation. After booting to the XP disk and selecting install by repairing current OS the computer did the normal first reboot to install. The Windows load bars came up, but after that it just loaded a black screen with a mouse cursor.

I've tried several things to correct this:
Standard pci gfx card
reset cmos
turn off jmicron controller
load an earlier bios
reload latest bios
Several combinations of the above

My system specs are:
Intel E6600
OCZ GameXtreme 700w psu
EVGA 7900gs
2gb Crucial Ballistix DDR2-800
Lite-on DVD drive ide
NEC DVD drive ide
160gb Hitachi hd (system) sata
320gb Seagate hd(backup) sata

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. At this point I'm thinking the mb is bad, but I'd really don't want to rma this thing. For the little time it worked, it worked great.

Edit: I also tried booting to a Ubuntu live cd. It gave me an Xgraphics(not sure what it said exactly, I'm not very familiar with Linux) error, and a very long error log that I don't know how to read. I got the Ubuntu console, but no gui.

Resolution

Thanks for the replies guys. You were absolutely right about the repair install. I went against my own advice to save some time and it ended up screwing me. It worked great the first day, but wouldn't start the next. I thought that I should still be able to do a repair and at least have it boot up, but obviously that's not the case.

I found that it probably wasn't the mb when I packed it up to RMA it, and reassembled my old computer. I went to repair my old comp and had the same problem. That narrowed the possibilities down a great extent lol. I ended up doing a new install using the unused portion of my backup drive and it's now working great. I should have backed up and done a fresh format and install in the first place but I was being lazy.

Well, all's well now, and thanks again for the help :^)