I have found myself stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I have a reasonably decent latop (2 ghz dual core, 1gb ram) with Windows XP Professional (No SP installed).
The OS boots up, but a lot of the hardware is not recognized.
The problem is:
I can't boot from DVD - DVD drive is detected, the option is in BIOS - it tries to load from DVD, but I just get a repeating underscore, it doesn't load the DVD, then eventually it gives up and boots XP. (The DVD worked when booting another machine)
I can't boot from USB - USB devices not recognised
- I can't connect to the internet - Network card not detected
How do you install a new OS / format a machine, if the CD drive is not recognized, and I have no way of putting drivers on the thing?
All I want to do is boot from a CD and format the PC.
Could I put the laptop harddrive in my laptop and install a fresh version of XP on it, then transfer it back to the broken one?
Could I put my harddrive in the broken one and somehow fix the drivers in the BIO?