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Which version of Windoze? If Win2k, connect your 27's HDD to a USB enclosure and transfer the i386 folder via another PC, then reinstall the HDD.
Boot the 27 with a W98 diskette and install windoze from there. IIRC, that was how I got windoze onto the 17 & M34. Plenty of info if you google "installing windows 2k without cd drive". It's been a while and I reckon it'd be the same proceedures for WinXP.
Installing Windows 2000 or XP
* Attach the harddrive to the host computer and install a minimal bootable DOS system i.e. by booting a Win98 Emergency Boot Disk and performing the command "SYS X:" (where X = the laptop's harddrive).
* Copy FDISK.EXE to the laptop harddrive.
* Return the harddrive to the laptop and boot to DOS. (If you have Win98 installed by default, you can skip the first two steps and simply reboot in Windows to DOS.)
* Run FDISK and set up your new Windows system partition on this laptop. (If you do not do this on the laptop, after reboot you will receive the infamous "NTLDR IS MISSING" error. This error may still occur if the partition is greater than 7.8gb in size)
* Then return the drive to the host and format the drive as FAT32. (DO NOT format as NTFS.)
* Repeat the "SYS X:" step to make the new partition bootable.
* Copy Himem.sys and Config.sys, too. Otherwise SMARTDRIVE.EXE won't run
* Get SMARTDRV.EXE from the internet and copy it to your Thinkpads harddrive.
* Also, from the Win2K or WinXP CD, copy the I386 folder to the harddrive.
* Return the laptop's harddrive to the Thinkpad one final time and boot to DOS.
* Run SMARTDRV.EXE first, then change directories to I386 and run WINNT.EXE, this will allow the installation to begin.
* During installation, choose NOT to format the destination partition, since it contains the installation files. If you want that filesystem to be NTFS you can convert it after installation from within Windows.
I had another PII laptop (a Micron TransPort Trek2) that DID have a CD drive. Loaded XP on that and put the drive into my CF-27... booted right up! I loaded the drivers (including the touchscreen) and everything works mint!
It won't help you in this case (since the CF27 lacks a FireWire port) but I installed Windows 7 on my CF-30 by putting my Macbook in FireWire target mode and booting the CF-30 off the Macbook's internal optical drive.
cctaco, I'd actually still be interested. The Micron I used is no longer functional (tried some CPU hacks... didn't work) and I had only loaded XP on a 10gb drive. I'd really like to go larger!
If you have a working PC with CD drive, hook up an adapter to the 2.5" HDD (either directly from your IDE cable or via external USB enclosure), boot Ghost up and clone the OS over to the new drive.
I may have over-simplified the procedure but it's possible (and not too difficult) A good amount of reading is required on your part, to understand how each software work and accept the learning curve. It can be overwhelming and if it's beyond you, pay a local techie to get it done.
Alternatively, Easus Partition Manager/Master and some others, will work in windoze but I didn't like it, where the destination HDD
must be larger than the source.
I've used Ghost sucessfully many times with desktop drives here at the shop, but not ONCE have I been able to clone a laptop drive and have it boot up. I have no idea why! The clone goes fine with no errors but when I go to boot it acts like there's no HDD. I'm guessing it doesn't copy the MBR but I don't see why the program would treat a laptop drive differently.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
