me = stumped

Panda

help!

I have an old compaq armada laptop that i was using for college all year,
through all the different programs that i was using there was a lot of crap
on the computer so i got rid of a load of them.

the computer was still very slow and seemed to be a lot of processes running
despite having removed a lot of programs.
so i decided to re-install 2000.

that didnt help.
after that it gets a bit blurry.
tried installing xp and it went pear shaped.

now i have a completely formatted hard drive. no os.
the only way i can get into dos even is by using a win 98 boot disk.

the xp pro disk will not boot, neither will a win 2000 pro or win 98 disk that i have.

I made the 6 floppies for the xp clean install and ran them, which is fine until i get to the stage after the 6th disk.
since its a laptop there is only a docking bay for floppy or cd drive.
cant have both at the same time.

i've even tried taking out the floppy drive and putting the cd drive in and hope that it worked but no joy, didnt really expect it to.

what do i do?

thanks.

The Muppet

Panda wrote:

so i decided to re-install 2000.

that didnt help.
after that it gets a bit blurry.
tried installing xp and it went pear shaped.

Did you install the correct video driver and set the screen to the default resolution after the install of 2000? What are the machine specs? It may not be up to running xp.

Is there a setting in the bios to boot from cd If so make sure the CD is set as your first boot device in the bios . Start the pc with the xp/2000 in the drive and watch the screen for the message "press any key to boot from cd" at this stage press any key and it should boot into the setup process for the os.

Capt'n Midnight

First check your licences, you can't install OEM 2000 or XP on a machine that did not come with it, (transferrable 2000 / XP licenses are rare and available ones are rarer)

From the 98 boot floppy,
SYS C:
COPY *.* C: (say N to overwrite files) (may be sub folders too can't remember)
swap drives and reboot - you may be able to see the CD now at the dos prompt - if not you may also need to copy files from the ramdrive can't remember the drive letter to c:


C:
MD Win98
CD Win98
Copy \Win98
Now depending on what drivers you may need - put in either the CD or FDD on the next boot and run setup from the win98 folder

Panda

ok, meant to ask that too,
how do i get into the bios at startup,
havnt had to do it in such a long time and theres no prompt like other computers when its starting up.

its able to handle xp, a friend has the same laptop and it runs ok.

the "press any key to boot from CD" came up only once.
that was after i used the xp boot floppies.
but as soon as it came up it stalled.

will try that 98 boot disk suggestion when i get home tho,
sounds promising.

thanks.
any other suggestions?
just in case that doesnt work.

timeout

should be either the "del" key or "f1" to enter the bios although i have known some to use "f2" or "f10" also. Just try all of them at the compaq splash screen which should actually say something like "press f1 for setup" sometimes.

Capt'n Midnight

Very old compaqs/IBM's used to use floppies to change bios settings.

Find out the model number and have a look around www.hp.com

The Muppet

Panda wrote:

ok, meant to ask that too,
how do i get into the bios at startup,
havnt had to do it in such a long time and theres no prompt like other computers when its starting up.

its able to handle xp, a friend has the same laptop and it runs ok.

Try F12 with a Compaq . failing that F1 F2 F 10 or Del. If none of those work google is your friend.

Capt'n Midnight

The Muppet wrote:

Try F12 with a Compaq . failing that F1 F2 F 10 or Del. If none of those work google is your friend.

after the second boot I'd usually hold down a couple of keys to see what the Key Stuck message said.
Crtl-Alt-Esc
Ctrl-Alt-F1
are worth a try with older clone PC's too