Windows Installation on Laptop

[CobraKillerGT]

Alright, so I have a laptop. Nice dell Latitude.

It currently has windows XP on it and the previous user has insane restrictions set on the usage so I want XP off it because I don't know the password to the admin account. Problem resetting it is it doesn't have a CD Drive in it. It's nice and recent too, not an old laptop.

I ripped the windows 2000 install disk (all I have) to a 2GB flash drive and placed it on the laptop and attempted to run it, knowing once it ran it would modify the bootloader and then boot to the setup when the machine went a restarted. This failed mainly because, DUH... windows 2000 disk won't let you install 2000 from the interface if you have a newer version of windows.

I have 2000 ripped to a partition on the hard drive, entire disk. Is there anyway I can tell the PC to boot to the setup disk on the hard drive without having a boot CD or a boot disk (No flop. or CD)

 

[FlashDude]

Why don't you just buy an external dvd burner and boot from that. You can pick one up for less then $80 here. It will make your life a whole lot easier.

 

[sPlAtOiD]

Thats the truth.Your gonna need it anyway.

 

[CobraKillerGT]

Useless measure. No money and the BIOS doesnt even support booting from external drives. I already checked that first thing.

There has to be a way to tell it to look and boot from the windows 2000 cd I have placed on the H.D., the setup would of done it anyway had i gotten it to run (which it wont because of the version mitch match)

 

[superdave1984]

Do you have a friend with a similar machine that will let you borrow a CD drive to put in and do the install?

 

[CobraKillerGT]

Nope... I got it to work, ish. My only problem now is, I can only start the install from Windows, not during boot (long story) and the admin (ex) admin of the machine had privlages set so I can't install it/run the install. I can't install during boot, it doesnt boot from the fricken CD drive. It just doesn't. Not an option.

 

[superdave1984]

So you have 2000 installed now or os it still XP? If it's XP you can try this trick in the following thread. It works to change the admin password. I have used it myself.

http://techist.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=1028562#post1028562

 

[The General]

It doesn't have an optical drive? What was Dell thinking??

 

[CobraKillerGT]

Great. If only... you know. I had a CD drive to boot from.