Friend has "nuked" his windows 7 laptop, at boot all he gets is the error message "boot failed - a required device is missing - insert your instaLLation disc"
Obviously, he hasn`t got one as win 7 came pre-loaded and he doesn`t want to fork out for it!
He has a copy of win xp service pk 3 from his old computer that he has tried to put on it, but it won`t allow him to format the drive first, it just goes straight in to Set-up, then fails.
Anybody care to recommend a free download formatting app that i can burn to cd - so that he can "nuke it" properly before he tries to put xp on?
or any other suggestions welcomed!
Ta!
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You need to run command console from the windows XP install disk, and run fdisk.
You have got a win 7 cd? use that and his license key that's on the base of the laptop.
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>>run command console from the windows XP install disk, and run fdisk<<
Tis part of the problem, as soon as you get the "hit any key to boot from cd" prompt you get no options at all, it just starts loading the set-up files, then shuts down due to a "problem was detected",
Me thinks that Set-up might be "seeing" the drive has the correct format, so not bothering to offer the format option first, either that or whatever caused the original kiss of death on the Win 7 op sys is still active and preventing installation of xp, hence my thought of third party formatting first.
>>You have got a win 7 cd?<< - nope, pre-loaded! an he`s too tight to buy a copy when he`s got xp3!!
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NAh, sounds to me like a duff cd or a hardware error.
When Windows XP first loads it creates a Vdisk in memory, and loads the setup files into there.
However, download this www.deftlinux.net/
Burn an ISO boot CD, and then boot it with the deft cd. You can then use the linux disk manager to fdisk your old install.
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Thanks chaps - plenty there to play with! ;-) cheers!
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Ignore that link, it isn't actually legal. There was a site with digital in the name which did host the proper ISOs which were legal.
This was the legal source, but it now appears to be taken down.
corporate.digitalriver.com/store/digriv/html/pbPage.Homepage?resid=Tfv@sAoBAlkAACKM4acAAAAq&rests=1308360367628
I remembered the link had the name digital in it, and googled that wrong in anger.
John sorry for getting mad at you, it has just been a very very bad week for me, and being accused of steeling software was the last straw as I do everything by the book and even loose work because of it.
I tried to edit my link out, but it was too late.
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>> Ignore that link, it isn't actually legal. There was a site with digital in the
>> name which did host the proper ISOs which were legal.
>>
>> This was the legal source, but it now appears to be taken down.
>>
>> corporate.digitalriver.com/store/digriv/html/pbPage.Homepage?resid=Tfv@sAoBAlkAACKM4acAAAAq&rests=1308360367628
>>
I had that one bookmarked as it looked very useful, never did work out whether it was 100% legit or not, looked it. (OK that's not saying much)
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The copy was legit, it is provided so that people that buy Windows 7 can download it and use it before waiting for the media to be posted.
They are still hosting it but the location has changed.
Amazon apparently also hosts the ISOs.
Other people have checked the checksum and have confirmed it is the genuine article, e.g not modified by hackers.
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If it's a fairly new laptop you may find that not all the necessary Windows XP drivers exist for the laptop's hardware and you may find an original Windows XP installation CD doesn't understand SATA hard disks without loading the necessary drivers first. This can be a bit of a faff and could be why it's failing at the installation stage.
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Not once had a problem with getting XP install to recognise SATA drives, I think this was fixed in service pack 1.
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Well!! - Tis very strange, bought a Win7/vista/xp repair/recovery disk, with loads of tools on it, none of which would recover the system, tried to do a complete fresh install after repartitioning and formatting the drive, and have tried installing (from installation disk) win xp sp3 and win xp prof, when you press any key to install from cd, both immediately start loading the setup files to ramdrive then fail installation, they dont even offer the format/partition option as usual. Downloaded a win7 iso ;-) and that wouldn`t work either!! However I can install/remove Linux Unbuntu at will, and once installed runs perfectly!! - so friend is going to see if he can get used to it, if he cant he`s worried he might spill his coffee on it!!
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formatting win 7 lappy - Zero
