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    how to reinstall the windows on a netbook without cdrom??

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by hitme666, Oct 25, 2009.

  1. hitme666

    hitme666 Notebook Guru

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    how do we install windows on a netbook as it does not have a built in cd rom...??
     
    hitme666, Oct 25, 2009
    #1
  2. Callamity

    Callamity Notebook Enthusiast

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    1) Buy and external Drive
    2) Use a bootable USB
     
    Callamity, Oct 25, 2009
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  3. hitme666

    hitme666 Notebook Guru

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    how do we make a pendrive bootable??
     
    hitme666, Oct 25, 2009
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  4. ninjabilly

    ninjabilly Notebook Guru

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    ninjabilly, Oct 25, 2009
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  5. fred2028

    fred2028 Sexy member

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    Or just use an ISO
     
    fred2028, Oct 26, 2009
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  6. andponomarev

    andponomarev Notebook Enthusiast

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    Installing OS from a flash drive is a pain in the . However, it's still possible. The problem is you have to make a rain dance to make the flash drive bootable and recognizable by a laptop. It heavily depends on the drive controller, and the laptop BIOS.
     
    andponomarev, Oct 28, 2009
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  7. NeRo45

    NeRo45 Notebook Evangelist

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    Find a program that makes a bootable disk into a USB. Theres a program called like Win2usb or something. Thats what I used. Its not hard at all. Find the program and follow the instructions....what it will do is copy the cd to usb
     
    NeRo45, Oct 30, 2009
    #7
  8. andponomarev

    andponomarev Notebook Enthusiast

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    1. Format a flash drive using the HP Format tool. Note that you need to have Win98 (or similar) boot files (io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com).
    2. Copy the contents of the WinXP CDROM onto the flash drive.
    3. Boot from a flash drive. Launch the winnt.exe file.

    This should work.
     
    andponomarev, Oct 30, 2009
    #8
  9. DEagleson

    DEagleson Gamer extraordinaire

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    Never got a Windows XP install with a usb pen to work, so yeah its painful to get it to work. :(
    But getting Windows Vista / 7 to boot off usb, is much easier.
    (Not posting guide as its already been posted in the thread.)

    Dont really own a netbook, but i do own a ASrock Ion 330, and i think that its specs are similar to a netbook, if you count off the fact that it has a dual core cpu and a Nvidia Geforce 9400m.

    First tried using a XP professional install and everything worked as expected once the drivers where in place, but i heard so much talk about Win 7 so i tested it out by swapping the hdd and doing a clean install.
    It worked "out of the box" with no driver issues whatsoever.
    Its fast and light on ram usage too. :)

    But it was bought to be a dedicated media center so its now running a Ubuntu 9.10 install with XBMC using vdpau decoding.
     
    DEagleson, Nov 1, 2009
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  10. DarK_MischieF

    DarK_MischieF Notebook Enthusiast

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    Agreed. What I did was cut off 4GB off of my hard drive, then mark as an Active partition. Extract the ISO onto the partition (formatted as FAT32). I recommend using EASEUS Partition Master.

    Its free and very easy to use. Plus your install will be very quick. Just when the BIOs is POSTing, just select the hard drive and it should boot alright.

    Although I did this because I had TWO hard drives. I believe each hard drive can only have 1 Active partition.
     
    DarK_MischieF, Nov 7, 2009
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  11. Rorschach

    Rorschach Notebook Virtuoso NBR Reviewer

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    Thats what I do. I use my 250gb external hdd as my install disk, it also keeps my system image and backup isos for all of my cd's, as well as my steam game backups. You can use a program like magic iso and then you don't really even need a cd drive, just run the isos right from your external hdd.
     
    Rorschach, Dec 7, 2009
    #11