Using a USB drive to install windows XP???

[Gees]

Hi all

I have a Laptop with no Cd-rom and no network connection, but i seem to be able to connect a usb drive to it.

the hard drive is currently empty but my psp which i'm using as a usb drive is able to connect.

I was wondering if anyone knows how to use your usb to install windows on the computer.

If it helps i have an external floppy that i can use too.

Sorry if this topic has been discussed but i tried searching and couldn't find anything.

Thanks for your help.

 

[tendrousbeastie]

Whether or not you can install windows from USB depends on whether your laptop's BIOS is able to boot the system from a USB device.

On my desktop PC for example if I leave my USB Flash Drive attached when rebooting my PC it will fail to boot telling me that it is an invalid system disc (as it tried to boot from the USB stick rather than the internal harddrive).

On a very old SOny laptop I used to have I had the same problem as you, wherein the laptop didn't have any internal floppy or CD-ROM. This laptop alas didn't have the BIOS capacity to boot from USB so there was nothing I could do to re-install Windows using external devices s (even using a USB CD-ROM)

Best thing you could do to find out is to take the laptop into a local computer shop and see if they can help you out buy pluging one of their USB CD-ROMs into the laptop and seeing if it can boot a copy of Windows from CD (they will almost certainly have a copy lying about some to test with).

If it does you could probably talk them into letting you install windows onto the laptop in their shop, or they might charge a few dollars or pounds or whatever.

Hope this helps.