N505VE Windows XP OS Install???

I've recently acquired a Sony Vaio PCG-N505VE, but it didn't have a hard drive. I was going to switch from my Dell Inspiron 8000 to this Vaio any way, but when I swapped the hard drive over, which removing/installing on the Dell is way easier than the Vaio, to the 'new' Vaio it would just get stuck in a boot sequence loop, so I put it back into the Dell and went ahead and deleted the old partition and set up a new one on the hard drive while it was still installed. Then installed the hard drive into the N505VE, connected my USB CD-ROM drive to the laptop, inserted my Windows XP disc, and started the computer only to find that not only did it not boot from the disc prompting for a format and install, but that the only thing on the display was a message stating that no OS was found. I checked the Boot Order, and it states that the ATAPI CD-ROM drive is first, then the diskette drive, then the hard drive. Problem is, as I'm sure you are all aware is that since there is no physical drives on this Super Slim, the only way seems to use a USB drive.

What am I doing wrong, and how do I fix the problem so that I can install Windows XP on this machine?

 

Bump to the top.

 

Can you see USB-ATAPI CD-ROM in must be specific in the Boot option menu in BIOS in order for it to boot to usb-cdrom.

 

No, I can't. My cousin came over this weekend and took a look at it. Was able to manage to get it formatted using the 3.5" drive and boot disk. We're thinking that it can detect the 3.5", but not the CD-ROM, so it looks like my option at this point is to load Windows 98 by diskette through the 3.5" then trying to use the CD to load XP.

Does anybody have a place where I can download Windows 98 so that it is ready to be loaded by diskette to another machine? I don't have the 30-40 disks it will require, but I figured I could use 2 or 3 and leapfrog them.

 

Does anybody know if I can update the BIOS to allow for the use of a USB CD-ROM in the Boot Order? If so, where would I find the update for the BIOS?

 

I've done some more looking and it looks like the Sony Vaio CD-ROM PCGA-CD51 is the ATAPI CD-ROM Drive that the BIOS on the laptop are looking for...is this correct? Would purchasing a PCMCIA to USB card work in order to use my current USB CD-ROM into the one that it is looking for, or am I going to have to try and find one for purchase? Any chance anybody has one I can borrow for a few days?

 

Nevermind...duh!!! Any card I purchase is going to need an operating system in order to install the drivers necessary to use it. Damn! It looks like I'm going to need to either try and run the 98 install with either a butt load of disks, or leapfroging them...or I'm going to need to suck it up and try to find the PCGA-CD51.