Dell Latitude CPI Laptop

**jbeal** · December 6th, 2004, 05:08 PM

My boss gave me a dell laptop that had lost its partition, I was able to fdisk and format, but it will not recognize my wni98se disk to install windows.... What can/do I do?

P.S. I can Start using a startup floppy, But since the cd is not plugged in it will not load a driver. When I swap to the cdrom it doesnt recognize the drive.

**tommo666** · December 6th, 2004, 05:40 PM

OK, you can have both bits connected. The floppy or the cd will work off the supplied expansion cable. So connect the floppy to the cable then put the cd in the slot next to the battery in the laptop. Set the bios to boot from floppy first. bung the winddies CD in the CD Rom, then use the setup disks to load the OS.

**BIGGS** · December 6th, 2004, 10:12 PM

i fix those at my work all the time, easiest way is to take a boot disk and copy the windows 98se cab files to a local hard drive on your home machine, then use nero and there is an option to make a bootable cd, then you select a: for the boot image and insert your windows boot disk then you drag the windows 98se cab files over to the cd layout and then burn the cd.

now you can leave only the cd rom in the laptop and set the bios to boot from cd, and you will now have a cd that boots like a windows boot disk (but 100x faster) and access to your cdrom

another option would be to use the floppy drive and after you fdisk and do the full format , sys the drive, you can do this by booting from the floppy drive and do a copy *.sys to yoru c: or when you format your drive do a format c: /s to copy the system files over. this will make your c: bootable and next step is to install a generic cd rom dos driver to your hard drive and you will have a bootable c: with cd rom support

hope this help

Biggs

**jbeal** · December 6th, 2004, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by tommo666

OK, you can have both bits connected. The floppy or the cd will work off the supplied expansion cable. So connect the floppy to the cable then put the cd in the slot next to the battery in the laptop. Set the bios to boot from floppy first. bung the winddies CD in the CD Rom, then use the setup disks to load the OS.

Thank You After calling all my friends I found a cable, hooked it up as you described....It worked great, In fact I am replying on the laptop now!!!!!!

Again thanks

**jbeal** · December 6th, 2004, 11:46 PM

Problem solved thanks

**format c:** · December 7th, 2004, 02:22 AM

Glad to here you got your lappie working, I have made the boot cd and I have used the floppy install like you did
I Have to same lappie and find it to be a good machine, I use a portable burner on the uSB port and it works great, I think these a good little machines
Enjoy