laptop frenzy

cjohns · #1 October 4th, 2004, 05:29 AM

I recently used fdisk to format the hard drive on a notebook computer. When asked if I wanted to start with cd rom support I selected yes, but the computer cannot detect the drivers for the cd rom because I have the floppy drive inserted where the cd rom would go. If I take the floppy drive out and insert the cd rom drive it does not do anything because the driver files are on a floppy.
How do I reinstall my operating system if I cant use the cd rom drive? or How can I get around needing the drivers for cd rom support?

tetonbob · #2 October 5th, 2004, 04:59 PM

Make and model of laptop? IBM, Toshiba, Compaq? Each one has a technique for doing this process with only one drive bay.

cjohns · #3 October 6th, 2004, 01:16 AM

My laptop is a Dell Latitude CP.

Please help.

jdc2000 · #4 October 6th, 2004, 02:17 AM

You need to fdisk and format the laptop's hard drive using a boot diskette. When formatting, make sure to use the /S option to transfer the system files so you can boot from the hard drive. Then, you need to copy the files needed to load a DOS CD-ROM driver to the hard drive and copy the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files to the hard drive as well, with appropriate modifications to them to allow loading the DOS CD-ROM driver files from the hard disk instead of the diskette. Then, power off the laptop, switch the drives, and boot from the hard drive. If you have trouble getting the DOS CD-ROM drivers to load from the hard drive, I have a drivere that has its own install program that can be installed from diskette.