Re: laptop - new HD - no CD or floppy drive

Ok, I tried this the first time through not quite sure what I would use
SmartDrv for, and I had a problem ( I know what it is; it creates a virtual
drive from RAM).

This is what I did;
- created 2 partitions; 1 = 35 gb and 2 = 5gb
- formatted both as FAT32
- Sys'd partition 1 (C:)
- the 2nd partition is D:
- copied the I386 folder from the CD to d:\i386
- put the HD back in the laptop and booted to Win98 command prompt
- from d:\i386, ran Winnt
- at that point it told me it could not find SmartDrv (now I know why it's
needed)
- selected the option to proceed without SmartDrv
- it gave me a message saying "copying files to drive"
- and then it stopped, seemingly in the middle of setup. The laptop was not
locked up. But it was still on the screen titled copying files.

Where'd I go wrong, other than not having SmartDrv?



You're on the right track but you need to make some adjustments:
1. Connect the new disk to the desktop PC.
2. Partition & format it like so:
First partition: 20 GBytes FAT32
Second partition: NTFS or FAT32.
3. Boot the desktop with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
Make sure that smartdrv.exe is on that disk.
4. Run this command: sys c:. ((assuming that E: is
the first partition on the new disk)
5. Copy a:\smartdrv.exe to c:\.
6. Boot the desktop into WinXP.
7. Copy your WinXP CD to E:\i386 (assuming that E: is
the first partition on the new disk).
8. Install the new disk on the laptop. It should now boot into DOS.
9. Run smartdrv.exe.
10. Run this command to start the installation of Windows:
c:\i386\winnt
11. When finished, convert drive C to NTFS if desired.

With an ultraslim laptop like yours you must take extra precautions
to protect yourself against similar mishaps in future. Get yourself
a copy of an imaging program (e.g. Acronis TrueImage), then create
an image of drive C: and store it on drive D:. The next step is to
copy that image file to an independent medium so that you can
restore it if the disk should fail again (which, of course, it won't!).



.

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