using external cdrom on totally blank system---

[eshort]

this is related to me earlier question, today!

Many times, I am faced with having to completyely reinstall windoze on a totally blank hardrive..ie..ive fdisked-formatted hdd but no OS or files on it...

need to know how to get an external cdrom to work so i can then install windoze from it.

i have both parellel port and pcmcia external cdroms and hv never been able to get them to work unless a version of windoze is already on the hdd.

Im not sure exactly how these devices mate with the computer..i know special translation drivers r needed if the hdd is blank??

any help-or references to web sites explaining this would be greatly appreciated.

thanx.

[Brangwen]

Eshort, here's a shot at an answer. I've built a few systems and here's what I'd try doing. I presume you have drivers for the external drives on floppies? I'd simply copy them to the bootable partition of your HD or include the drivers on a boot disk (Windoze/MSDOS?)and, with the drives plugged in, boot up the computer and see if the external drives are recognized. What's the interface between the drives and the computer, e.g., USB?

Curious.

Brangwen http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif

[jeana]

For installing Win9x (dunno 'bout 2000), you need to make a DOS boot disk, with commands to load the DOS drivers for your devices in your config.sys file... Take a look on the driver diskettes that came with your cdroms and see if they have the DOS drivers; otherwise hunt around on the manufacturers' sites. I have never booted from a device plugged into the parallel port, but know that this works for PCMCIA cdroms.

The procedure for PCMCIA should be exactly the same as for installation on an older (that is, before BIOS versions capable of autobooting from the CD-ROM became standard) computer with a blank hard drive and internal CD-ROM... now, if you don't know how _that_ works, I will look around for a good link for you but as it is 3:45 AM my time, I am just too exhausted right now...

[eshort]

thanx..have the general idea but need more specifics..ie..

(l) how wld u copy to the boot portion of the hdd?

dont have the drivers for the external cdroms...assuming i can find them..how wld i copy them to a boot disc?..what wld be the dos syntax and the commands to do this?

one of the parellel cdroms= "Dirt Cheap Drives"

[jeana]

Well, for starters, check out www.bootdisk.com (http://www.bootdisk.com)

In general, if your HDD is completely new and empty, you'll need to boot up using the boot floppy you've made. This floppy should have a few other DOS programs on it, like fdisk, sys, format, and edit. Use fdisk to create one or more partitions on the hard drive. Then you'll have to format the hard drive using the "format" command. Finally you can make your partition bootable by using the "sys" command (you can also use "format /s" to accomplish this). There is more information than you ever wanted to know on partitioning and formatting hard drives in Technical Support here, if you need help.

Then here's some stuff on writing a config.sys file: http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum9/HTML/001309.html

I KNEW I had done this question before! Well, don't know if it helped the guy since we never heard back, but anyway... http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/Forum9/HTML/001580.html

Somerville, eh? I used to live there a few years ago, near Porter Square http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif